


Tt\e Teact\ir\g 
of Bible Classes 



Edwin F. See 




Class _ 
Boofc_ 

Copyright If. 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES: 
PEINCIPLES AND METHODS 



The TEACHING OF 
BIBLE CLASSES 

Principles and Methods 



With special reference to 
Classes of Young Men and Boys 



EDWIN F. SEE 



New York 

The International Committee or 

Young Men's Christian Associations 

1905 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies ftectaved 

JUN 2 1905 

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Copyright, 1905, 6y 
The International Committee of 
Young Men's Christian Associations. 



CONTENTS 



PAET ONE 



THE TEACHER: HIS WORK, QUALIFICATIONS 
AND PREPARATION. 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

I. What Is Teaching? 1 

II. The Teacher's Qualifications 7 

III. The Teacher's Preparation 13 

IV. The Connection of Body, Mind and Spirit 18 

V. Adolescence 25 



PAET TWO 

THE STUDENT: HIS PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND 
SPIRITUAL NATURE. 

VI. Attention — Interest 35 

VII. Perception — Apperception 43 

VIII. Memory — Imagination 49 

IX. Feelings — Will 57 

X. Habit 65 

XI. The Spiritual Nature 71 

XII. Review 79 

V 



VI 



CONTENTS 



PART THREE 

THE LESSON: THE TEACHER'S APPROACH TO 
THE STUDENT. 

PAGE 

XIII. Adaptation 83 

XIV. Method 90 

XV. Reviews 96 

XVI. The Art of Questioning 102 

XVII. The Art of Questioning (Concluded) 109 

XVIII. The Art of Illustrating 115 

XIX. The Art of Illustrating (Concluded) 124 

XX. The Lesson Study 130 

XXI. The Teaching Plan 137 



PART FOUR 
FINAL SURVEY 



XXII. The Teacher's Relation to the Individual 

Student 145 

XXIII. The Teacher's Mistakes 152 

XXIV. Jesus as a Teacher 160 

XXV. Examination 170 

Appendix 175 



INTEODUCTION , 



In this book are presented the notes of a course of study 
pursued by classes of young men under the leadership of 
the writer for several seasons. The leaders of over fifty 
other classes in different parts of the United States and 
Canada have used these notes in manuscript or pamphlet 
form, and from them now comes the request for their 
publication. 

No claim for originality is set up for the contents of this 
book. An effort has been made to assemble from a some- 
what wide field of reading material on the principles and 
methods of teaching which seems to be within the range of 
the average teacher of Bible classes for men and boys. 

These notes are intended then for the average teacher 
upon whom, under our present economy, dependence must 
be placed for the leadership of the largest number of our 
Bible classes. It is the purpose of this book to make a sim- 
ple statement of the elementary principles of teaching in so 
far as they are applicable to biblical instruction. The writer 
has assumed to be a middleman between some of the writers 
of the extensive literature of the subject and some of those 
busy people who are charged with the important duty of 
teaching biblical truth to our young men and boys. For this 
reason a considerable number of Illustrative Quotations 
have been introduced, and while full references are made 
to the sources of the material here presented for the use 
of those who can and will take the time to read widely on 
the subject, these quotations are offered for those who have 
not the time to read them in their original setting. The 
writer hopes that he will not be regarded as reflecting too 

Vii 



Viii INTRODUCTION 

severely on his own work in stating that he regards these 
quotations as the best part of the book. 

The needs of teachers of Bible classes for young men 
and boys have been especially borne in mind. The em- 
phasis has been naturally laid in books concerning religious 
instruction on the characteristics of childhood and early 
adolescence. This is the time of character forming, and 
attention to religious culture during this period is in the 
nature both of wise construction and prevention. At- 
tempts to make up in later life for deficiencies of education 
at this period must be in the nature of the case more or 
less pathological and corrective. And yet there must be 
a psychology of later adolescence to which a larger degree of 
attention should be given than has been bestowed upon it 
for the sake of those who have not had wise training in 
earlier years. In the selection of material for this book, 
this need has been kept in the foreground. 

One of the crying necessities of the Church and its 
allied organizations to-day is for trained Bible teachers. 
The training has a twofold aspect, looking towards a larger 
grasp of the subject and a better method. Such training 
should be marked by an endeavor to furnish comprehensive, 
historic, biblical knowledge, and by an endeavor to inculcate 
approved methods of conveying this knowledge to others. 
These two elements by the plan here proposed are carried 
along at the same time in a training class of teachers who 
devote a portion of the lesson period to a study of the 
principles and methods of teaching as outlined in these 
pages, and another portion to the study of a common Bible 
lesson which is to be taught by them during the ensuing 
week to classes of which they themselves are teachers. By 
this method the members of the training class are not only 
prepared to teach an individual lesson, but are familiarized 
with the principles which will help them in the instruction 
of any lesson. 



PAET ONE 



THE TEACHER: HIS WORK, QUALIFICATIONS 
AND PREPARATION 



I. WHAT IS TEACHING? 

Teaching has three principal objects : The communication 
of knowledge, the stimulating of the activity of the student, 
and the development of character. As applied to the instruc- 
tion of Bible classes therefore teaching has for its objects the 
impartation of scriptural truth, the awakening of the men- 
tal and spiritual activities of the student, and the rounding 
out of his life. 

1. The communication of knowledge. This is the pri- 
mary object of teaching, and whatever stress may be laid 
on the other two objects must not be construed as detract- 
ing from the importance of this aspect of teaching. Noth- 
ing can take the place of the information that comes 
through the process of teaching. No amount of enthusiasm 
or exhortation can make up for the absence of the knowl- 
edge that must be the foundation of all true character. 
Especially is this true of the knowledge that comes to the 
student through the Bible. This has an inherent value that 
does not belong to any other subject of instruction. "Ye 
shall know the truth/' says Jesus, "and the truth shall make 
you free." 

2. Stimulating the activity of the student. The com- 
munication of knowledge, however, is only a part of the 
teaching process. The imparting of items of information 
like the passing of tangible commodities from one hand to 
another does not constitute instruction. "Teaching is not 
telling." The self -activities of the student must be aroused. 
The work of learning is an unfolding process. There is 
that in the student which awakened and quickened by the 

1 



2 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

act of teaching develops the truth from within. This is the 
meaning of such definitions as these: 

"Teaching is simply helping the mind to perform its 
function of knowing and growing." — Laurie. 

"Teaching is the process hy which one mind from set 
purpose produces the life-unfolding process in another." — 
Tompkins. 

"Teaching is enabling another to re-state the truth in 
the terms of his own life." — DuBois. 

"To teach is to cause to learn." — Jacotot. 

"Teaching is causing another to know." — Hart. 

One of the best definitions of teaching is found in the 
prayer of the Psalmist, "Open thou my understanding." 
In this view of teaching the teacher is a wise guide of the 
active processes going on within the student. There is 
much that the student may and does learn without a 
teacher. Think of all the knowledge that comes to one 
without the active co-operation of any teacher. One of the 
most important duties of the teacher, therefore, is to stand 
guard over the activities of the student and give them wise 
direction. Dr. John Dewey says, "I believe that the teach- 
er's business is simply to determine on the basis of larger 
experience and riper wisdom how the discipline of life shall 
come to the child." 

The value of this process of self-activity is very great. 
Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby said that "the effort a boy 
makes is a hundred times more valuable to him than the 
knowledge acquired as the result of the effort." Dean Stan- 
ley says of the teaching method of Dr. Arnold that it "was 
founded on the principle of awakening the intellect of every 
individual boy." Two advantages will result from this 
method of teaching: First, the knowledge secured by it 
will make a more vivid impression and will be longer re- 
tained in the memory. When a boy was shown a globe 
and manifested surprise that the earth was round, he was 



WHAT IS TEACHING? 3 

asked : "Did you not learn that in school ?" "Yes," he re- 
plied, "I learned it but I never knew it." Second, the pro^ 
cess implies a mental and spiritual training, a development 
of the powers of the student, which could not be secured 
through the mere communication of knowledge. 

The teaching of students in the Bible contemplates the 
awakening, not only of their intellectual activities, but of 
their spiritual activities as well, the quickening of spiritual 
processes, the stirring of spiritual faculties, which will 
enable the student to grasp and appreciate spiritual 
truth. 

3. The development of character. Teaching has for its 
object, not only the communication of knowledge, and 
the stirring of the mental and spiritual activities of the 
student, but the development of character as well. Teach- 
ing eventuates in education. It may be well, therefore, 
to glance at a few definitions of education : 

"The adaptation of a person, a self-conscious being, to 
environment and the development of capacity in a person 
to modify or control that environment." — Butler. 

"Education has to do with the development of power, 
or faculty, and aims at a full, harmonious realization of the 
normal capacities of man." — Sully. 

"Education is any process or act which results in knowl- 
edge or power or skill. Education is a more comprehensive 
term than teaching, and teaching more comprehensive than 
instruction." — White. 

"Education is such a preparation of the individual in 
physical, intellectual and moral capacities as will enable 
him to secure the highest enjoyment from their use here 
and hereafter." — Eoark. 

"Education cannot be better described than by calling 
it the organization of acquired habits of conduct and ten- 
dencies to behaviour." — James. 

"Education is the process of development or drawing out 



£ THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

the faculties of the individual man and training for the 
various functions of life." — Wickersham. 

"Education is not the training of the mind but the train- 
ing of the man." — Huntington. 

"The object of education is the realization of a faithful, 
pure, inviolate and hence holy life." — Froebel. 

The significance of that teaching which results in educa- 
tion is apparent in these definitions. Teaching is regarded 
as having to do with the life of the student, and with 
his whole life. Knowledge is communicated, the mental 
and spiritual faculties are awakened, not for the value that 
the knowledge or the awakening have in themselves, but 
for their reflex influence on the daily life of the student. 
When asked what Oxford could do for its students, Prof. 
Jowett replied, "Oxford can teach an English gentleman to 
he an English gentleman." 

Especially is this true of the teaching of the student in 
the Bible. That teaching of the Bible class which results 
only in intellectual knowledge of the contents of the Bible, 
or in awakening the curiosity of the student concerning its 
statements, has fallen far short of its greatest efficiency. 
"Thy word have I hidden in my heart." "Wherewithal shall 
a young man cleanse his way ? By taking heed thereto ac- 
cording to thy word/' These are the legitimate uses of the 
knowledge that comes to the Bible student. The chief object 
of Bible teaching is the molding of character. Burton and 
Mathews have truly said that "it cannot be too strongly or 
too often affirmed that a merely intellectual, non-religious 
study of the Scriptures is not only spiritually unfruitful 
but unscientific." 

REFERENCES FOR READING.f 

*The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp 2-3; 81-94. 
*TeacMng and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 5-34. 
Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 29-32. 
Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 13-15. 



tSee appendix. 



WHAT IS TEACHING? 5 

Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 133-136. 
Principles of Religious Education. Butler, pp. 3-7. 
Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school. Burton and 
Matthews, pp. 3-9. 
My Educational Creed. John Dewey, pp. 3-9. (15 cents.) 
Unconscious Tuition. F. D. Huntington, pp. 3-4. (15 cents.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

What argument and appeal and exhortation wholly fail to 
accomplish, can, with some minds — perhaps to a certain extent 
with all minds — be accomplished little by little through in- 
struction, conveyed either in the exposition of teachings or in 
the study of history, and especially of biography. And, in the 
second place, it must certainly be acknowledged that the most 
solid results in character cannot be obtained except upon a 
broad foundation of knowledge. Principles and Ideals for 
the Sunday-school. Burton and Mathews, p. 7. 

Knowledge cannot be passed from mind to mind like apples 
from one basket to another, but must in every case be re-cog- 
nized, re-thought by the receiving mind. All telling, explain- 
ing, or other acts of so-called teaching, are useless except as 
they serve to excite and direct the pupil's voluntary mental 
powers. The teacher is a sympathizing guide whose familiar- 
ity with the subjects to be learned enables him to direct the 
learner's efforts, to save him from the waste of time and 
strength, or needless or insuperable difficulties, and to keep 
him from mistaking truth for error. But no aid of school or 
teacher can change nature's modes in mind work, or take 
from the learner the lordly prerogative and need for knowing 
for himself. The eye must do its own seeing, the ear its own 
hearing, and the mind its own thinking, however much may 
be done to furnish objects of sight, sounds for the ear and 
ideas for the intelligence. The Seven Laws of Teaching, 
Gregory, pp. 82-85. 

Religious nurture, as well as general education, is develop- 
ment by self-expression. It is the unfolding of a divine germ 
present from the beginning in the child-personality. It is 
training within religion, not merely preparation for it. Re- 
ligion of a Mature Mind. Coe, p. 317. 

The teaching of the Sunday-school must aim directly at 
the acquisition of knowledge of the Bible on the part of the 
pupil. But none the less consciously must it aim at the at- 
tainment of that moral and religious result which belongs 
to the school because it is a part of the work of the Christian 
church. The central element in the school cannot remain un- 
affected by the ultimate purpose for which the institution 
itself exists. The teaching of the Sunday-school must seek 
as its ultimate aim the conversion of the pupil and his de- 
velopment in Christian character. Principles and Ideals for 
the Sunday-school. Burton and Mathews, p. 5. 

Christianity assumes, I take it, that the end of religious 
education is never mere knowledge of learning, but to bring 



6 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

the individual into life — the largest, richest, highest life; 
and that life it conceives to be the sharing of the life of 
God — his character and joy. John thus reports Christ as say- 
ing: "I came that they may have life, and may have it abun- 
dantly." The Psychology and Pedagogy of Religion. Pro- 
ceedings of Religious Education Association, Vol. I., p. 68. 
— Henry Churchill King. 

The primary principle of education is the determination of 
the pupil to self-activity — the doing nothing for him which 
he is able to do for himself. — Sir William Hamilton. 

Unfortunately, education amongst us at present consists 
too much. in telling,, not in training. — Horace Mann. 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS, 



II. THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS 

The teacher has a twofold relation : One to his subject, 
and the other to his student. 

1. Relation to the subject. In the teaching of Bible 
classes, the subject is the truth of the Scriptures, and of 
this the teacher must have as complete and intimate knowl- 
edge as he can secure. Nothing will take the place of such 
knowledge — no amount of enthusiasm, no earnestness of 
appeals, no knowledge of the principles of teaching. 

He must have a knowledge that extends far beyond the 
scope of the particular lesson that he is teaching, for that 
lesson bears a relation to the whole range of biblical truth, 
and the significance of the individual lesson can only be 
determined by its relation to the whole. Keeping just ahead 
of the class will not suffice. 

His knowledge of the subject must be more than intel- 
lectual. It should be of a kind that has taken hold of his 
own life. He should have reached a spiritual apprehension 
of the knowledge that he is trying to communicate. He 
should have attained that spiritual discernment without 
which Paul tells us that "the things of the spirit of God 
are foolishness to a man." The teacher's knowledge of his 
subject should be of the kind that possesses him. It should 
weigh him down as a burden until it is transferred to an- 
other. As one has well pointed out, the teacher must 
not only know that which he would teach, but, if he is 
true to his office, he must also teach that which he knows. 
"Woe is me," said Paul, "if I preach not the Gospel." 

2. Relation to the student. The teacher bears a relation 



8 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

not only to his subject but to his student as well, and the 
latter is no less important than the former. Many teachers 
become so absorbed in their own enjoyment of the subject 
that they forget the bearing of the subject on the student. 
Mr. H. Thiselton Mark tells us that he once knew of an old 
gentleman concerning whom there was a tradition that he 
always closed his eyes when he was teaching, and that he 
became so wrapt up in his subject that the boys in his class 
were able to slip away and leave him to pour forth his 
lesson to almost empty benches. The teaching process 
may be represented by a triangle, one side of which stands 
for the subject, another side for the student, and the third, 
connecting the other two, standing for the teacher. Too 
much emphasis cannot be laid upon the direct connection 
between teacher and student, which shall not be broken by 
the subject. That teacher had come to a realization of 
this fact, who, when he was asked by a friend if he was 
teaching Latin, replied, "No, I am teaching boys." So of 
the Bible class teacher, it might be said that he is not 
teaching the Bible but boys or men — the Bible. For after 
all, it must be borne in mind that even the Gospel is a 
means to an end, and while it is the word of life, it is also 
the channel through which the influence of the teacher's 
personality is to be conveyed to the life of the student. 

The relation of the teacher to the student has several 
aspects : 

(1) The teacher must have a knowledge of the student. 
To use a common expression, he must know human nature. 
His knowledge should extend to the physical, the mental, 
and the spiritual characteristics of each of his students, to 
the environment of their daily lives, and the ambitions and 
purposes that control their actions. Neither should this 
knowledge be merely intellectual. It should not consist 
of a curious observation of the mental or spiritual traits 
of the student. Prof. James says that he cannot too strong- 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 9 

ly agree with his colleague, Prof. Munsterberg, when he 
says that the teacher's attitude toward the child being con- 
crete and ethical is positively opposed to the psychological 
observer's which is abstract and analytical. 

(2) The teacher must be an example to the student. He 
must be the bodily personification of the subject of his .. 
instruction, what Paul calls "a living epistle." Carlyle re- 
plied to a young man who wrote to him that he expected to 
be a teacher, and asked him for his advice : "Be what you 
would have your pupils be." A high school principal of 
my acquaintance made it a rule in the selection of teachers 
to choose only those whose personal character he wanted 
his students to emulate, this rule being based on the fact 
that character is chiefly influenced by example working 
through unconscious imitation. Of Lord Chatham it was 
said that everybody felt that there was something finer in 
the man than anything that he said. Emerson doubtless 
had some such thought as this in mind when he said, "What 
you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say." 
It is especially true of the Bible class teacher that he 
should be an embodiment of his own teaching, for, as we 
have seen, his chief object in teaching should be the de- 
velopment of the character of his students, and nothing so 
vitiates the force of his instruction as a recognition, which 
is generally quick and keen on the part of the student, of 
elements in the life of the teacher that do not conform 
to the spirit of his teaching. Nothing will so conduce to 
this end as the cultivation of a Christ-like character by 
the teacher. He should try to make it possible for the stu- 
dent to look through him to Christ. Not in such a supreme 
degree can the teacher say, as Jesus said, "Follow me," but 
this should be his objective. Paul said, "For though ye 
should have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not 
many fathers : for in Christ Jesus I begat ye through the 
Gospel. I beseech you, therefore, be ye imitators of me." 



10 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

(I Cor. 4:15-16) ; and again, "Be ye imitators of me, even 
as I also am of Christ." (I Cor. 11 :1.) 

(3) The teacher must be a friend of the student. This 
belongs to the sphere of the "Teacher's Other "Work than 
Teaching." To be a true friend of the student the teacher 
must enter into the life of the student outside of the class 
session. He will need to know the temptations to which 
the student is subjected in every-day life, the kind of 
home in which he lives, the companions with whom he fel- 
lowships, the ambitions and motives that master him. 

(4) The teacher must be a teacher. It would be well if 
he were a natural teacher, one who, even in the absence of a 
knowledge of the formal principles of teaching, has the 
native ability to inculcate knowledge, and inspire to a search 
for the truth. If he have such native ability, none the 
less he needs to have the knowledge of the principles of 
teaching to which reference will be made later. If he have 
it not, there is all the greater reason why he should apply 
himself to the acquirement of those principles which, 
whether consciously or unconsciously used, go to make suc- 
cessful teaching. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 
*The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 16-27. 
* Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school. Burton and 
Mathews, pp. 10-12, 22-24, 98-102. 
How to Teach the Biole. Gregory, pp. 24-29. 
Unconscious Tuition. Huntington, entire essay. 
Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, Part II. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

What the teacher knows he must teach. There is an inborn 
need and desire in man for expression. It is the instinctive 
impulse to tell in some way, by word or action, our thoughts 
and emotions so soon as they become vivid and intense 
enough. It is the teaching passion. "While I was musing the 
fire burned ; then spake I with my tongue." Other motives 
and impulses may mingle and aid, but this is primary and 
fundamental. The hot heart — hot with visions and discov- 
ered truth — forces speech, or teaching which is better than 
speech. The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 16-17. 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. n 

The teacher must master the lesson material until it pos- 
sesses him, until he is his message and, in some measure, he 
can say as our Master, who is the Supreme Teacher, "I am 
the Truth." The Bible Record. Wieand. 

Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit 
of God, for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot 
know them because they are spiritually judged. But he that 
is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of 
no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that 
he should instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. 
/. Cor. 3:14-16. 

It is axiomatic that the teacher who gains no spiritual help 
from his study will impart none in his teaching. If his 
method of study is such that it brings him no uplift or 
strength, it can hardly have a different effect upon his pupil. 
Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school. Burton and Mat- 
hews, p. 22. 

A teacher's study of his every scholar is quite as important 
as his study of his every lesson. Teaching and Teachers. 
Trumbull, p. 49. 

There is vastly more zeal and enthusiasm among religious 
teachers for Bible study than for the study of human life, 
for which the Bible was given. Biblical Material Adapted. 
George E. Dawson, in Proceedings Religious Education Asso- 
ciation, Vol. II., p. 74. 

The old-fashioned schoolmaster was supposed to need just 
two qualifications — knowledge of the subject, and ability to 
maintain discipline. Everything and everybody was taught 
in the same way, without regard to age. To-day a competent 
teacher must add at least one other qualification; he must 
understand the stage of the pupil's growth and adjust meth- 
ods of instruction thereto. The educational process is to be 
carried on from the standpoint of neither the teacher nor the 
subject, but from that of the child. The inner side of the 
pupil's life, his spontaneous interests, his characteristic ways 
of getting at things, constitute laws for the educational proc- 
ess. The Work of a Boys' Department. George Albert Coe, 
p. 35. 

In most situations — in none more than a school — what a 
man is tells for vastly more than what he says. Nay, he may 
say nothing, and there shall be an indescribable inspiration 
in his simple presence. Unconscious Tuition. Hunting- 
ton, p. 38. 

A teacher's spirit, a teacher's character, a teacher's atmo- 
sphere, and a teacher's life impress and influence a pupil quite 
as much as a teacher's words. Teaching and Teachers. Trum- 
bull, p. 32. 

The Sunday-school teacher is not simply a teacher. His re- 
ligious influence on the pupil ought not to be limited, cannot 
be limited, to that which he brings to bear through the knowl- 
edge of the Bible which he imparts, or which the pupil under 
his instruction gains. He is, or ought to be, the friend and 



12 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

pastor of the pupil as well as his instructor. Principles and 
Ideals for the Sunday-school. Burton and Mathews, p. 98. 

A teacher inevitably influences more by what he is seven 
days in the week, than by what he says one day in the week. 
Teaching end Teachers. Trumbull, p. 272. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 13 



III. THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 

The teacher's preparation for his work should extend 
both to the matter and the manner, to the substance and the 
method of his teaching. 

1. The teacher's preparation in the subject-matter of his 
teaching may be regarded in its general and in its special 
aspects : 

(1) The teacher's general preparation extends over his 
whole life. This is what Lyman Beecher intended to con- 
vey when he replied to the question, how long it took him 
to prepare a certain sermon, "Twenty years." The earnest 
teacher will make all sources of culture and discipline con- 
tribute to his efficiency as a teacher. Here all the knowledge 
that he secures from whatever source, whether from litera- 
ture, the sphere of his daily calling, or his association with 
men, will come into play, and the accumulation of years 
will go into the efficient teaching of a single lesson. He 
will seek a knowledge of the Scriptures as a whole, and to 
that end he will not be satisfied with a study of the more 
or less fragmentary lessons of the series of studies which 
he may be conducting, but will engage for himself if neces- 
sary in a systematic and thorough course of biblical study, 
even though such a course may require years for its com- 
pletion. 

(2) The teacher will give special preparation to each 
recurring lesson. Even though it may be familiar ground 
over which he is expected to lead his class, he will familiar- 
ize himself afresh with it, remembering that the essential 
element in teaching is not the perfunctory communication 



14 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

of knowledge but the transmission of the message of the 
lesson surcharged with the teacher's own personality. The 
biographer of Phillips Brooks tells us that Dr. May, one 
of his instructors in theology, was a 'saintly man, whose 
conscience did not extend into the sphere of scholarship ; it 
did not invade the province of church history. His sense 
of fidelity as a teacher was not disturbed by his cutting 
the leaves of a new text-book in the very presence of the 
class who were reciting from it. When a young teacher 
asked President Garfield, then a professor in Hiram Col- 
lege, the secret of his power, he said, "See to it that you 
do not feed your pupils on cold victuals." The necessity of 
making a fresh impression in order to the greatest effect 
on the student, the limitations of the lesson period calling 
for the economizing of time, and the presentation of the 
most salient suggestions of the lesson, the nature of the 
subject-matter, having to do with the supremest interests of 
the student's life — all these and other considerations call for 
the most thorough and renewed preparation of each lesson 
by the teacher. 

2. The value of the teacher's preparation in the method 
of his teaching should not be underestimated, least of all 
by the teacher. President Eliot in his inaugural address 
in 1870 said, "The actual problem to be solved is not what 
to teach but how to teach." The effect of the best subject- 
matter is oftentimes lost for want of a proper method of 
presentation. Emphasis on method need not be construed 
into a lack of appreciation of the necessity of the very best 
personality in the teacher. Dr. White in his Elements 
of Pedagogy has truly said that "the more scientific a 
system of teaching may be the more essential is the teacher." 
On the other hand, doubtless many a teacher of masterful 
personality has succeeded in spite of an objectionable meth- 
od. These considerations, however, do not lessen the im- 
portance of method in teaching. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 15 

The teacher's preparation in method may be of two 
kinds: 

( 1 ) There are what are called natural teachers. These 
men have the preparation of a native endowment. A com- 
mon illustration of such endowment is found in persons 
who can play the piano by ear, although they may be unable 
to read a note of music. Paul speaks of those who are 
"apt to teach/' and says that bishops should have that 
qualification. 

(2) There is also a preparation in acquired methods of 
teaching. It is possible to apply the elementary principles 
of pedagogy, or the science of teaching, to biblical instruc- 
tion and secure more effective teaching of the Bible. We 
have a recognized religious pedagogy. One of the objects of 
this study is to familiarize ourselves with the elementary 
principles and methods of teaching which are observed in 
so-called secular instruction. It should be borne in mind as 
a fundamental proposition that the mental faculties em- 
ployed in the reception of spiritual truth are the same as 
those employed in the reception of any other knowledge. 
The teacher of Sunday has to do with the same minds as the 
teacher of Monday. It is true that there are added ele- 
ments in the reception of the spiritual truth that are not at 
work in the impartation of intellectual knowledge, but in so 
far as the mental powers are engaged in the reception of 
spiritual truth, they are governed by the same laws and 
subject to the same condition as in the reception of any 
other form of truth. 

It must not be supposed that the study of the best 
methods of teaching will be either unnecessary or detri- 
mental to him who has native ability as a teacher. If by 
reason of native capacity a teacher has fallen into right 
methods of teaching, an acquired knowledge of the prin- 
ciples which he has been unconsciously practising could 
hardly make him less effective as a teacher. If he has 



16 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

proved efficient in spite of his lack of formal knowledge 
of the fundamental laws of teaching, how much more effi- 
cient should he prove to be with that knowledge. It is only 
the teacher who places too great reliance on the mere knowl- 
edge of correct methods of teaching who is injured thereby. 
It is necessary to distinguish between the science and art 
of teaching. In science "we know that we may know." In 
art, "we know that we may produce/' The science of teach- 
ing has to do with the formulated principles of teaching. 
The art of teaching has to do with the application and use 
of those principles in the actual instruction of students. A 
teacher may know the art of teaching without the science. 
The ideal teacher will have both. As James says, "Sciences 
never generate arts directly out of themselves. The science 
of logic never made a man reason rightly and the science 
of ethics never made a man behave rightly. The most such 
sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and 
check ourselves if we start to reason or behave wrongly; 
and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have 
made mistakes." 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

The Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 210-215. 
•Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 3-12. 
The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 7-12. 
•Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 105-115. 
Principles of Religious Education. Butler, pp. 15-16. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

When teaching involves the direction of book study by 
pupils and testing of results, the teachers' daily preparation 
must determine the proper assignment of lessons — a most im- 
portant duty. Much of the aimless study of pupils is due to 
the fact that the ends to be reached have not been clearly set 
before the mind. The knowing of what to do is no small 
part of, the doing of it, and it is not much too strong to say 
that a lesson properly assigned is half mastered. The writer 
has sometimes gone so far as to claim that a very good esti- 
mate of a teacher's skill can be based on the manner in which 
he assigns lessons or tasks. The Elements of Pedagogy. 
White, p. 214. 



THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION 17 

The Sunday-school must, first of all, understand fully the 
organization, aims, and methods of the public schools; for 
it is their ally. It must take into consideration the progress 
of the instruction there given in secular subjects, and must 
correlate its own religious instruction with this. It must 
study facts of child-life and development, and it must base 
its methods upon the actual needs and capacities of child- 
hood. It must organize its work economically and scien- 
tifically, and it must demand of its teachers special and con- 
tinuous work. "Religious Instruction and Education"; Nich- 
olas Murray Butler in Principles of Religious Education, pp. 
15-16. 

Whereas, with few exceptions, there had been a large 
amount of teaching, but very little thinking about it, the 
nineteenth century laid new emphasis on the method of 
teaching. Some of the finest ideas which have ever entered 
into the human mind have failed of their influence, because 
the men that had them did not know how to present them. On 
the other hand, ideas that have greatly influenced men have 
owed much to the form in which they were expressed. The 
vast influence of the Bible writers, for example, does not re- 
side merely in what they say, but in the manner and spirit 
in which they say it. The Teacher and the Child. Mark, p. 58. 

We do not for a moment believe that science will make an 
artist. While we contend that the leading laws of objective 
and subjective phenomena must be understood by him, we by 
no means contend the knowledge of such laws will serve in 
place of natural perception. Not only the poet, but also the 
artist of every type, is born, not made. What we assert is, 
that innate faculty alone will not suffice; but must have the 
aid of organized knowledge. Intuition will do much, but it 
will not do all. Only when Genius is married to Science can 
the highest results be produced. The success of every ap- 
pliance depends mainly upon the intelligence with which it is 
used. It is a trite remark, that, having the choicest of tools, 
an unskillful artisan will botch his work; and bad teachers 
will fail even with the best methods. Education. Spencer, 
pp. 66, 102. 

A teacher may work in conformity with these laws without 
knowing them, gaining right ideas of procedure from experi- 
ence; but the better way is to study the laws governing the 
teaching process, work in accordance with them, and thus 
reach the deeired result without making the many mistakes 
which otherwise would surely be made. The Sunday-school 
Teachers' Normal Course. Pease, Vol. II., pp. 149-150. 

Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences 
never generate arts directly out of themselves. An interme- 
diary inventive mind must make the application, by using 
its originality. Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 7-8. 



18 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



IV. THE CONNECTION OF BODY, MIND AND 
SPIRIT 

1. Unity of man. The treatment of man as body, mind 
and spirit is apt to be misleading. We are prone to think 
of these as separate entities, with different agencies for the 
training of each — the gymnasium for the body, the school 
for the mind, the church for the spirit. On the other 
hand, great emphasis should be laid upon the unity of man. 
Instead of saying, as one did, "I have a body, I have a 
mind, I am a spirit," we should say, "I am a man — body, 
mind and spirit." These three must go together in any 
comprehensive plan of religious education. So the gymnas- 
ium has come to recognize the relation of the body to mind 
and spirit; the school to recognize the relation of mind to 
body and spirit ; and the church to recognize the relation of 
spirit to body and mind. The attempt to develop any 
one of these departments of manhood without relation to 
the others will result unfortunately. Joseph Cook once 
said, "Educate a man's body alone and you have a brute; 
educate his mind alone and you have a sceptic (and we 
might add, educate his spirit alone and you have a bigot) ; 
educate his body and his mind (and his spirit) and you 
have the noblest work of God, a man." The triangle, which 
has come to be the symbol of the Young Men's Christian 
Association, with one side standing for body, another for 
mind, and the third, connecting the other two, for spirit, 
and the whole constituting a unit, is a true representation 
of the intimate relationship existing among these three 
departments of manhood. Ag Dr. Coe says, it is "a symbol 



CONNECTION OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT 19 

of symmetry. It stands for the best that was in the Greek 
ideal, but raised to a higher potency through Christ." So 
we emphasize the saving of the entire life. It is not simply 
the soul that is to be developed and prepared for useful 
living here and hereafter, but it is the entire man — -body 
mind and spirit. Jesus said (Matthew 16:27 K. V.), 
"Whosoever would save his life shall lose it, and whosoever 
shall lose his life for my sake shall find it; for what shall 
a man be profited if he shall gain the whole world and for- 
feit his life, or what shall a man give in exchange for his 
lifer 

It is the purpose of this study to emphasize the close 
relationship of these three departments of manhood — body, 
mind and spirit. For a scientific description of the con- 
nection between body and mind, which has been traced with 
reasonable clearness, the student is referred to the books 
mentioned below, or to almost any textbook of psychology. 
We shall make no attempt in this place to follow the 
workings of the cerebro-spinal system, but shall simply note 
the most evident effects of the body on the mind and spirit 
on the one hand, and of the mind and spirit on the body 
on the other, as an indication of their close relationship. 

2. Effects of body on mind and spirit. These are of 
such a common character, and are so apparent to all, as to 
call, in most cases, for no elaboration : 

Indigestion causing depression of mind. 

Bodily fatigue producing mental inaction. 

Certain physical diseases causing melancholia. 

An over-wrought nervous system resulting in peevish 
temper. 

A hearty meal superinducing drowsiness. 

Stimulants taken into the body exciting the mind. 

Narcotics taken into the body dulling the mind. 

"Mental action," says Dr. Roark, "may be wholly sus- 
pended by reducing the supply of blood to the brain 



20 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

through a pressure upon the arteries of the neck far short 
of that necessary to produce death. A clot of blood no 
larger than a wheat grain, or a minute splinter of bone from 
the skull pressing upon the surface of the brain, is sufficient 
to change a man of culture into an ignoramus, or one of 
eminent character into a moral wreck. Every surgeon can 
give instances of a change in mental or moral character as 
the result of accidents to the head. Epilepsy and congenital 
idiocy may be cured in children by trepanning." Recently 
an incorrigible youth was brought before the Juvenile Court 
in a western state and his parents asked that he be sent 
to a reform school. A physician made an examination and 
discovered a depression in the lad's skull, and his parents 
then remembered that he had had a fall several years be- 
fore. Three pieces of skull were removed and there was 
found a hard growth that was pressing upon the brain. 
When this was removed the boy's evil disposition seemed 
to leave him, he was obedient to his parents and, at his own 
request, was sent to school. Annie Payson Call, in "Power 
through Repose," says that the best and surest way to gov- 
ern one's temper is to lower the voice, and calls attention to 
the fact that when two people are in an argument, as the 
excitement increases the voices rise. "The fate of nations," 
a witty Frenchman once said, "is often determined by the 
digestion or indigestion of a prime minister." Not less 
is it true that the spiritual nature is affected by bodily 
weakness or pain. The great Dr. Alexander was once asked 
if he had a full assurance of faith. He replied, "Yes, except 
when the wind is in the east." Other things being equal 
the man of the most helpful spirituality will be the one who 
enjoys the best health. 

3. Effect of mind and spirit on body. Some familiar 
illustrations of the effect of mind and spirit on body, to 
which the student may add from his own experience, are 
as follows : 



CONNECTION OP BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT 21 

Extreme pleasure or pain causing loss of appetite. 

Conversely, joy and hope promoting health and vigor. 

Mental worry causing physical weakness. 

The mention of fruit causing the mouth to water. 

Mental fatigue producing physical weariness. 

Great fear turning the hair white. 

A sudden fright paralyzing the heart or brain. 

Anger producing redness or pallor. 

In this connection it should be noted that the various 
emotions have characteristic bodily expressions. For exam- 
ple, anger is manifested by tense muscles and clinched fists ; 
mental excitement by trembling limbs. 

Spencer calls our attention to the fact that "digestion 
of the food, the circulation of the blood, and through these, 
all other organic processes, are profoundly affected by cere- 
bral excitement." 

Annie Payson Call says that she has made nurses practise 
lifting while impressing the fact forcibly upon them by 
repetition before lifting and during the process of raising 
the body and lowering it, that they must use entirely the 
muscles of the legs. This use of the brain in the guidance 
of the body has made the work of lifting the burden one 
of comparative ease. Dr. Gulick, in his "Studies of Ado- 
lescent Boyhood," states that students have a stronger grasp 
of the hand than manual laborers because the former use 
the nerve centres, which supply the stimulus to the muscles 
which operate the hand, the most. 

This connection undoubtedly accounts for frequent mind 
and faith cures. As on the one hand actual illnesses may 
be produced in people by the frequent repetition of the 
statement by different persons to them that they do not 
look well, so on the other hand, actual illnesses may be and 
oftentimes are subdued and overcome by causing the mind 
to believe that no disease exists. A study of such mind 
and faith cures as "Faith Healing, Christian Science and 



22 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

Kindred Phenomena" by Dr. James M. Buckley would 
serve to emphasize the importance of this influence of the 
mind and spirit on the body. Hypnotism is another mani- 
festation of this influence. 

4. Applications to Bible teaching. (1) The religious 
teacher should give direct attention to the development 
of the physical powers of his students. The applications of 
biblical truth should be brought to bear directly upon the 
habits of the body. "Wherewithal shall a young man 
cleanse his way ? By taking heed thereto according to thy 
word." (Psalm 119:9.) As the wrong uses of the body 
will have an unfavorable effect upon the spiritual life, 
such wrong uses should be guarded against with rigorous 
care. As Spencer says, "The fact is that all breaches of the 
laws of health are physical sins." Purity of thought results 
in purity of life. (Matthew 5 :28 ; Philippians 4 :8.) Clean- 
liness is not only next to godliness but is a form of godli- 
ness. "Get a boy/' says Dr. Dawson, "to realize that a 
certain course of action makes his muscles flabby, puts it 
out of his power to ever be a strong, vigorous man, and 
that boy is going to think twice before he does that thing. 
Make a boy understand that bad hafoits are going to destroy 
his good health, impair his eyesight, or his hearing, destroy 
in a very real and tangible sense his soul, and he is going to 
think twice before he indulges in them/' 

(2) Physical activity on the part of younger students 
should be directed rather than repressed. An outlet for this 
activity will be found in the use of the hands, as in keep- 
ing notes of and illustrating the lesson, and in the drawing 
or making of maps. 

(3) The physical conditions of the classroom should be 
considered, and where necessary, improved: its seating, 
ventilation, heating, etc. 

(4) The members of men's Bible classes which meet in 
the evening after the fatiguing labors of the day, or on Sun- 



CONNECTION OF BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT 23 

day after the toil of the week, should have special con- 
sideration, and the work of the classroom and the as- 
signment of home work so adjusted as to add as little as 
possible to the physical draft upon the student. For such 
classes the work of the classroom should be varied as much 
as possible. One of the ways of effecting this variety is to 
pass occasionally from the consideration of abstract themes 
to concrete subjects, or to such exercises as drawing. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

*T7ie Teacher's Handbook of Psychology. Sully, pp. 27-43. 

The Story of the Mind. Baldwin, pp. 101-122. (40 cents.) 

Psychology and Education. Roark, pp. 21-24. 

Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 31-33. 

The Spiritual Life. Coe, pp. 71-89. 

The Work of a Boys' Department. Coe, pp. 30-31. (20 
cents.) 

The Physical Boy. Luther H. Gulick, "Association Boys," 
April, 1902, pp. 38-47. ($1.00 per annum.) 

Power Through Repose. Annie Payson Call. ($1.00.) 

The Physical Basis of Character in Man's Value to Society. 
Newell Dwight Hillis. ($1.25.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

We begin with the unity of the educational process. The 
Greeks, taking symmetry as an ideal, trained mind and body 
co-ordinately; but Christian asceticism neglected the body, 
holding it to be a clog upon the soul. Moreover, mediaeval 
thought, at least in some of its currents, separated spiritual 
culture from general mental culture, as though the mind and 
the soul were two separate things. The influence of these 
ideas is still visible throughout the Christian world. For the 
most part, religion takes no account of the physical powers, 
and frequently but small account of the intellectual, aesthetic 
and even the moral faculties. But it is a maxim of modern 
education that the individual is to be educated as a unit. 
The Work of a Boys' Department. Coe, p. 30. 

Moreover, it is of peculiar moment to the religious teacher 
to take account of the unity of man. Because he ought to 
face the exact facts and to know and to obey the laws of his 
divinely given nature, the religious teacher least of all can 
afford to ignore either the physical or psychical conditions in- 
volved in the unity of human nature. On the physical side 
he should not forget, for example, the effects of fatigue — 
that surplus nervous energy is the chief physical condition of 
self-control — nor the close connection of the muscular activity 
and will, nor the physical basis of habit. On the psychical 



24 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

side, the religious teacher needs to consider the possible help- 
ing or hindering influence of intellectual and emotional condi- 
tions. The moral dangers of intellectual vagueness and of 
strained and sham emotions may be taken as illustrations. 
"The Psychology and Pedagogy of Religion." Henry Churchill 
King, in Proceedings of the Religious Education Association, 
Vol. I, p. 68. 

There is necessarily a general harmony between the soul 
and the body. They not only develop together, though not 
always in the same ratio, but their activity and energy gen- 
erally vary with each other. When the vital energies of the body 
are lowered by drowsiness, languor and disease the psychi- 
cal activities are depressed. When the soul is energized by 
strong and buoyant emotions and desires, the bodily powers 
respond to the quickening influence. Elements of Pedagogy. 
White, p. 33. 

The cerebro-spinal system is sometimes compared to a tele- 
graphic system, of which the brain is the great central office; 
the spinal chord and ganglia, less important central offices; 
the nerves the connecting lines, the special sense organs 
the points from which messages are sent in, and the 
muscles the individuals to whom messages are sent. The 
similarity may be illustrated by tracing a sensation and its 
results. If you touch a hot stove, the little nerve buds in 
your finger are excited; the afferent nerves carry the news 
of the accident to the brain, which sends out along the ef- 
ferent nerves a sharp command to the muscles of the arm to 
contract, and withdraw the finger. Psychology in Education. 
Roark, p. 24. 

Dr. Josiah Strong, in Religious Movements for Social Bet- 
terment, traces the origin of the greater amount of attention 
that is given to-day to the betterment of social conditions to 
the larger recognition of the interdependence of the body and 
mind and the influence of physical conditions on spiritual life. 
He says: "It is found that there is an intimate relation be- 
tween a bad environment and bad habits; that bad sanitation 
has not a little to do with bad morals; that bad ventilation 
and bad cooking are responsible for much drunkenness. We 
are learning that whatsoever society sows, that must it also 
reap; that pauperism and intemperance, vice and crime are 
as natural as any other harvests; and that to expect to escape 
effects without removing their causes is to mock God, who is 
a God of law," 



ADOLESCENCE %% 



V. ADOLESCENCE 

1. Stages of development. The first twenty-five years 
of the life of a human being, extending from infancy 
through childhood, boyhood and youth, to manhood, may 
be roughly divided as follows : 

Period of infancy and early childhood, 1-6 years. 
Period of later childhood, 6-12 years. 

Period of adolescence, 12-25 years. 

The period of adolescence in turn may be divided into 
three stages, the characteristics of which, as indicated in 
single words by Dr. Forbush, Mr. E. P. St. John, and Dr. 
Coe respectively, are appended. The significance of these 
descriptive words will appear in the development of the 
subject : 

Early adolescence, 12-16, ferment, physical, impulsive. 

Middle adolescence, 16-18, crisis, emotional, sentimental. 

Later adolescence, 18-25, reconstruction, intellectual, 
reflective. 

2. Characteristics. As the emphasis in this discussion 
will be laid upon the period of adolescence, the Bible classes 
in mind being composed almost entirely of boys over twelve 
years of age and young men, the characteristics of the 
periods of early and later childhood will be mentioned only 
to furnish a background for a proper consideration of the 
characteristics of the adolescent period. 

1-6. This is the period of greatest physical activity. 
The child is a bundle of instincts. He is dominated by 



26 



THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



curiosity, manifests extreme confidence and is exceedingly 
imitative. 

6-12. Self-consciousness begins now to assert itself. 
Imagination runs riot, emotions display themselves, mem- 
ory is developed, and becomes tenacious. The play instincts 
are now largely developed, but they are of an individualistic 
character and without special aim. There now comes the 
dawning sense of personal responsibility. The child lives 
in the present, is frank and confidential, and obedient to 
authority. 

12-16. For the sake of conciseness and definiteness, the 
characteristics of this period will be named in single 
phrases, and will be designated as physical on the one hand, 
and psychical or mental and spiritual on the other hand : 



Physical. 

Period of rapid growth. 

Heart increases in size. 

Larnyx and lungs enlarge. 

Large arteries increase. 

Muscles grow rapidly. 

Vocal chords elongate. 

Shoulders broaden out. 

The senses are strengthened. 

Circulation becomes more 
rapid. 

The skin becomes more sen- 
sitive. 

The voice is deepened. 

Needs more sleep and food. 

The beard grows. 

Brain stops growing by 15. 

Changes peculiar to the male. 

Period of least mortality. 



Mental and Spiritual. 

Assertion of selfhood, various- 
ly described as self-asser- 
tion, self-sufficiency, self- 
feeling, and braggadocio. 
Egoism developing later 
into altruism. 

Social organization with same 
sex. Also known as gang 
instinct. 

Team work in games. 

Restlessness of mind. 

Enthusiasm in sports. 

Appearance of fighting in- 
stinct 

Full of energy. 

Secretiveness with parents 
and others. 

Feeling of loneliness. 

Desire for sympathy. 

The wandering instinct 

Longing for the remote and 
strange. 

Possessed by ideals. 

Desire for quick results. 

Bashful with other sex. 

Time of hero worship. 

16-25. The characteristics of this period may also be in- 
dicated in single phrases as follows: 



ADOLESCENCE 27 

16-18. 18-25. 

Guided by reason. Sentiment for opposite sex. 

Feeling of independence. Romantic interest 

Constructive activity. Sense of mystery of existence. 

Reconstruction of faith. Period of doubt — climax 18. 

(20-30, Starbuck.) Yet very positive. 

Leanings to life occupation. "Sceptic and partisan." Gu- 

lick. 

3. The age of conversion. The history of national and 
ecclesiastical customs, as well as the result of scientific in- 
vestigations, point to the period between twelve and six- 
teen as one of critical religious importance. We are told 
that it has been a world-wide custom to celebrate the ad- 
vent of adolescence with feasts, ceremonies and mystic 
rites. This is the age of confirmation in the Eoman Cath- 
olic Church, the Church of England, the Episcopal Church 
in America, the Lutheran and other churches. 

A number of bodies of men have been canvassed with 
reference to learning the average age of their conversion. 
The following is the summary of the result of several such 
canvasses in one tabulation by Dr. Coe (Spiritual Life, 
p. 45) : 

Cases Average 
Examined Age 

Graduates of Drew Seminary 776 16.4 

Young Men's Christian Association 

Officers 526 16.5 

Starbuck's Conversion Cases 51 15.7 

Starbuck's Cases of Spontaneous 

Awakening 75 16.3 

Members of Rock River Con- 
ference 272 16.4 

Coe's Cases of Decisive Awakening 84 15.4 

1784 16.4 

When, therefore, Dr. Stanley Hall speaks of conversion 
as "a natural regeneration" and "a physiological second 
birth," and Dr. Starbuck calls it "a distinctively adolescent 
phenomenon," they are not simply reducing this critical 
religious experience to the terms of physiology or psychol- 
ogy, but recognizing that in the orderly development of 



28 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

the life of the boy, according to the laws of God, the- 
physiological and psychological changes which come to him 
at this period are part of a religions experience as well. 
As Dr. Coe says, "When the approaching change has her- 
alded itself, the religions conscionsness also tends to awak- 
en. When the bodily life is in most rapid transition, the 
religions instincts likewise come into a new and greater 
life." 

4. Applications to Bible teaching: (1) By all means 
note the physical and mental stages in the life of the 
student, especially from twelve to eighteen, and adapt the, 
instrnction accordingly. It should be borne in mind, that 
as "the child is not a diminutive adult," so the boy is not 
a small edition of the man. He has a psychology all his 
own. The trend of his life and the character of his experi- 
ence are not simply different in degree but different in kind. 
This fact should be borne in mind not only in the prepara- 
tion of a curriculum of instruction, but by the individual 
teacher in his adaptation of each lesson to the members of 
his class. 

(2) The boy of twelve needs a male teacher. As in the 
home the boy of this age turns naturally from the mother 
to the father for leadership and guidance, so in the in- 
struction of the classroom, he will naturally pass from the 
tutelage of women, who, up to this time, have been his most 
appropriate and most effective instructors, to that of men, 
into whose life and experiences he is beginning to pass. 

(3) An appeal should be made to the student's disposi- 
tion to activity in his religious instruction during the en- 
tire period of adolescence. He now enters a period of 
restless doing and should be made to feel that religious in- 
struction may eventuate in doing. The mere passive study 
of the Bible will not meet the requirements of this period, 
but means of helping others and practical methods of doing 
good should be pointed out to the student through the 



ADOLESCENCE 29 

instruction. The "immediateness" of the youth's ideals 
also should be recognized and the opportunity for the ex- 
pression of his activity in these directions should not he 
delayed. Dr. Dawson thinks that God should he presented 
to young persons as an active God, and that our ideas are 
still too much colored by that older transcendent idea of 
God as one who has finished his work — a king on his throne. 
As a corollary to this, the student should be stimulated to 
do the thing that is hard. The representation of the Chris- 
tian life as being "carried to the skies on flowery beds of 
ease" is not an appropriate aspect in which to present it 
to the student at this period of his life. 

(4) This period also calls for the manifestation of sym- 
pathy on the part of the teacher. The boy especially can 
be easily repelled at this, the most critical period of his 
life, from all religious influences. His day-dreams must 
be respected; his doubts, neither ignored on the one hand, 
nor magnified by antagonism on the other. 

(5) The rising social instincts of this period should be 
recognized and utilized. The class might appropriately be- 
come a club, with its organization, its officers, and its objects 
of united endeavor. 

(6) The peculiarities of this period call for certain char- 
acteristics in biblical instruction : 

a. The Bible should be presented to the student as his- 
tory or story or poetry as the case may be. It should 
come to him in its natural form as literature rather than 
in systematic form as theology or doctrine. This is the 
period for the discovery of facts, and not for the formula- 
tion of dogmas. 

b. Biography will appeal to the student during this 
period. The lives of the patriarchs, prophets and the 
apostles as men should be held before the student. In this 
time of hero worship he demands the "personalizing of re- 
ligion/' The sacrifices of the early heroes of faith, the ad- 



30 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

ventures of St. Paul, the manliness of Christ, these should 
be portrayed in vivid colors and allowed to make their own 
appeal to the dramatic element in the student's life. 

c. The Bible instruction during this period should be 
objective and concrete. The student has not reached the 
age of introspection. He should not be allowed to indulge 
in morbid speculations concerning the truths of Scripture, 
but should have them presented to him with the aid of con- 
crete illustrations and objective applications. 

(7) Most important of all, have respect to the "age of 
conversion." This critical period in the life of the boy 
should not be allowed to pass without a surrender of his 
will to God and a decision to follow in the footsteps of Jesus 
Christ. This period once passed without such surrender 
and decision, the boy may find himself as a man launched 
on the sea of doubt or dissipation, whence his return to a 
religious anchorage will be through much storm and stress 
and after many devious wanderings. 

(8) Mr. Pease, in his Bible School Curriculum, has sug- 
gested that for the period of middle and later adolescence 
the teacher must depend more upon guiding the young man 
by an appeal to his reason than by an appeal to his affec- 
tion, or by an authoritative presentation of truth which is 
to be accepted without question ; must enlist the student in 
some form of active service, and must treat each case sepa- 
rately, instead of depending wholly or mainly on mass 
teaching or class teaching. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, 
Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education. 
G, Stanley Hall (2 Vols., $7.50 net. The standard and compre- 
hensive work on this subject). 

*The Boy Problem; A Study in Social Pedagogy. William 
B3'ron Forbush, pp. 9-41. (75 cents.) 

*The Religion of Boys. Luther Halsey Gulick. Association 
Boys, April. 1902-August, 1903. 

A Boy's Religion. George E. Dawson, (10 cents.) 



ADOLESCENCE 31 

The Work of a Boys* Department. Coe, pp. 37-40. 

The Religious Life of Boys. Edward K. Allen, Association 
Seminar, October, November, December, 1902. ($1.00 per 
annum.) 

Moral and Religious Education. Forbush. How to Help 
Boys. ($1.00 per annum.) 

The Spiritual Life. Coe, pp. 29-103. Education in Religion 
and Morals. Coe, pp. 247-267. 

The Psychology of Religion. E. D. Starbuck. ($1.50.) 

The Pedagogical Bible School. S. B. Haslett, pp. 100-203. ($1.25.) 

Principles of Religious Education. Hall, pp. 159-189. Mc- 
Murry, pp. 191-211. 

*A Chart of Childhood and a Chart of Adolescence. Edward 
P. St. John. (15 cents each; 2 for 25 cents.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

As Professor H. M. Burr says, "If the boy's ideal of man- 
hood is Fitzsimmons, he immediately sets about punching 
some other boy's head. If he thinks the life of an Indian the 
ideal, he straightway takes to the woods or whoops it up in 
the alley, as the case may be." For this reason the wise boys' 
club leader who proposes an attractive new plan will take heed 
always to carry it into effect at the very next meeting. The 
Boy Problem. Forbush, pp. 20-21. 

Of interest in this connection is the fact, not generally 
known, that during adolescence is the period of greatest ques- 
tioning in regard to religious matters; it is the period of 
doubt. Mr. F. S. Brockman, in an unpublished study of the 
religious life of 251 preparatory and high school students, has 
clear and interesting facts upon this matter. Ninety-three 
had religious doubts. They were arranged by years as fol- 
lows: 

13 to 15 8 

16 to 19 19 

20 to 22 15 

23 to 25 11 

26 to 29 1 

Mr. Brockman says, "The doubts arising from mental de- 
velopment are normal and in every way helpful and healthful. 
It is but the readjustment of faith when one is beginning to 
think, and should result in stronger faith." Association Boys. 
October, 1902. Gulick, p. 166. 

We may safely lay it down as a law of growth that is almost 
a universal tendency for the perplexity, uncertainty and nega- 
tion of adolescence to be followed by a period of reconstruc- 
tion, in which religious truth is apperceived and takes shape 
as an immediate individual possession. * * * The com- 
mon trend of religious growth is from childhood faith, through 
doubt, reaction and estrangement, into a positive hold, on re- 



32 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

ligion, through an individual reconstruction of belief and 
faith. The Psychology of Religion. Starbuck, 280, 283. 

When an Omaha boy arrives at puberty he is sent forth into 
the wilderness to fast in solitude for four days. To develop 
self-control, he is provided with bow and arrows, but is for- 
bidden to kill any creature. Arrived on the mountains, he 
lifts up his voice to the Great Spirit in a song that has been 
sung under such circumstances from before the time that the 
white man first set foot upon these shores. The words of the 
song are, "God! here, poor and needy, I stand!" The melody 
is so soulful, so appealingly prayerful, that one can scarcely 
believe it to be of barbarous origin. Yet what miracles may 
not religious feeling work? The boy is waiting, in fact, for 
a vision from on high — a revelation to be vouchsafed to him 
personally and to show what his life is to be, whether that 
of a hunter, or of a warrior, or of medicine man, etc. Do you 
not perceive how the very same impulses sway both the In- 
dian boy and the boy of civilization? Here is the desire to 
come into personal relations with the divinity; here is the 
facing of ultimate mystery and of destiny; here is the most 
troublesome problem of youth — that of the lifework. The Spir- 
itual Life. Coe, pp. 48-49. 

Objective righteousness is not predominantly fostered in 
the church, and in so far does not correspond to the best char- 
acteristics of young manhood. During the last twenty-five 
years, in our prayer meetings and churches, we have heard a 
great deal of the following topics (we do not mean that these 
topics are exclusive, or that they particularly characterize the 
meetings of the present day) : Faith, the feeling of love to 
God, the sense of sin, repentance, the significance of the atone- 
ment, joy in Christian life, anticipation of Heaven, en- 
durance of trials, the resistance of evil, endurance of 
suffering, anticipation of the joys of Heaven, patience. 
Such topics as these do not correspond to the dominant char- 
acteristics of young manhood of which I have been speaking, 
in two ways. First, they are predominantly emotional, and 
second, predominantly introspective. They are not related 
most definitely to doing things, this doing things that is the 
representation of the objective religious life which must char- 
acterize young manhood. The emotional nature appears to be 
more highly developed in women than in men. These virtues 
are more virtues of endurance, of conservatism, of femininity, 
than they are of objective righteousness, of katabolic man- 
hood. And it is not to be expected that any institution that 
lays prominent emphasis upon topics of this kind will succeed 
in permanently interesting or holding the allegiance of men 
whose predominant and best characteristics are of another 
kind. The Association Outlook. Gulick. December, 1893, p. 42. 



PART TWO 



THE STUDENT: HIS PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND 
SPIRITUAL NATURE 



ATTENTION— INTEREST 



35 



VI. ATTENTION — INTEREST 

We have seen that man is regarded as having three 
departments, known as body, mind and spirit. Mind, in 
turn, is found to have three great capacities designated as 
knowing, feeling and willing. The capacity to know, in 
turn, is now to be considered in various aspects, the first 
of which we call "Attention." This division of the powers 
and capacities of man may be represented by the accompany- 
ing diagram: 



Man 



Body 

Mind. 
Spirit 



Knowing. 

Feeling 

Willing 



Attention 



1. Definition. The power the mind has for know- 
ing itself, its own acts, states and purposes, is called "con- 
sciousness. " Consciousness also includes the power of the 
soul to know itself as the knower. This is the great central 
fact of the mind. Indeed, it is so fundamental that it is 
often regarded as being synonymous with the mind itself. 
It is this that gives me my sense of personal identity, that 
gives me the knowledge that I am I, without which there 
would be no basis for other mental operations. 

When consciousness is concentrated on a single object 
we have attention. Hence attention has been appropriately 
defined as "focussed consciousness." Attention is that at- 
titude of the mind in which one or more of its powers 



36 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

are fixed upon something that is presented to it from 
without or within. Attention is not a separate faculty 
of the mind like memory or imagination. It is rather a 
state of mind affecting one or more of the faculties. The 
word attention comes from two words, meaning "to stretch 
towards." It is therefore the reaching out of the mind 
for a particular thing with which it may he concerned at the 
time. Sully speaks of attention as "the ability to detain 
objects before the mind/' As the operator of the stereop- 
ticon has the power to detain a particular view of the mov- 
ing panorama while he passes others on into obscurity, so 
the mind determines which of the many sensations and 
images passing in review before it shall be held for more 
careful consideration. 

2. Two kinds of attention. Attention has been divided 
into two kinds which have been variously designated as 
voluntary and involuntary, voluntary and spontaneous, com- 
pelled and attracted. The first is that which is commanded 
by the will. It must not be expected that attention secured 
in this way shall be sustained. The most disciplined mind 
has difficulty in fixing itself for any length of time by sheer 
force of will on a given object. The chief value of com- 
pelled attention is as an introduction to attracted attention. 
The teacher may compel attention at the beginning of the 
lesson, but unless it soon pass into attracted attention it 
will not be sustained. 

Therefore we lay emphasis on involuntary or spontan- 

ous, or attracted attention, and it is at this point that 
interest comes in. President Schurman says that "Interest 
is the greatest word in education," and another says that 
"Interest is the motive power of attention." That which 
the mind is interested in it will fix itself upon with eager- 
ness. Gregory compares attracted attention with mental 

hunger seeking its food and delighting itself as at a feast. 

So absorbed does the mind become in that in which it is 



ATTENTION— INTEREST 37 

interested as to be unaware of sensations that come to it 
through ordinary channels. Soldiers are said to have be- 
come so absorbed in battle that they have not known when 
they were wounded. Henry Clay, when in delicate health, 
was compelled to speak on one occasion, and asked a friend 
to stop him at the end of twenty minutes. Eepeated pull- 
ing of his coattails, pinching, and even running of a pin 
into his leg, failed to divert his attention from his sub- 
ject, and he finally sank exhausted into his chair at the 
end of two hours. 

3. How to secure attention. Without attention there 
can be no teaching. As well commence before the class is 
assembled, or proceed after it is dismissed, as to attempt 
to teach without the attention of the students. Negatively, 
then, attention is not to be secured by clamor on the part 
of the teacher. It may not be claimed by any appeals. The 
teacher who in loud tones calls for attention is not so apt 
to secure it as the one who lowers his voice or ceases for the 
moment altogether. The pause in the vibrations of the 
machinery aboard ship causes the passengers to awake, 
whereas an increase in the vibrations might only lull to a 
sounder sleep. "Nothing," says Gregory, "can be more 
unphilosophical than the attempt to compel the wearied 
attention to new effort by mere authority. As well compel 
embers to rekindle into a blaze by blowing." 

Among the methods of securing attention, we turn first 
to those which inhere in the subject-matter itself, which 
have to do with the handling of the material in such a 
way as to arouse interest when it could not otherwise exist, 
and later to artificial devices : 

(1) Contact. It is a fundamental law that interest is not 
usually aroused on the one hand by that which is entirely 
new, so new that there is nothing in the mind with which the 
object can be related, nor, on the other hand, by that which 
is very familiar, so familiar that it presents no new situa- 



38 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

tion to the mind for its consideration. Miss Edgeworth 
reports that a company of Esquimaux taken to London had 
no interest in its sights because they were too new and too 
strange. On the other hand, it is safe to say that the average 
Londoner walked the same streets at the same time with- 
out being any more interested because the sights were too 
familiar. A combination of the new with the old is neces- 
sary to attention. "The old in a new setting, or the new in 
an old setting, is the arrangement that insures interest." 

The teacher in introducing a new subject to the student 
must commence at that point in the student's present knowl- 
edge which is nearest to the subject in hand. This Mr. 
Patterson DuBois calls "the point of contact." Here the 
teacher must attach his subject. This process Mr. DuBois 
again calls "interest grafting." For example, when Mr. 
Henry Clay Trumbull was called upon to interest a class 
of mission school boys in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, he 
asked, "Boys, did any one of you ever see a sheep shear- 
ing?" One boy responding affirmatively, Mr. Trumbull 
continued, "Boys, just listen all of you ; Billy here is going 
to tell about a sheep shearing he saw in the country." After 
the description Mr. Trumbull asked of the narrator, "How 
much noise did the sheep make about being sheared ?" "He 
didn't bleat a bit," was the reply. "Well, now," asked Mr. 
Trumbull, "how does that story agree with what the Bible 
says about sheep shearing ?" 

In the case of older students the biblical material may 
oftentimes be related to the dominant interests of life 
as they appear in the pursuit or occupation of the btudent. 
Instead of coming to the Bible with exegesis, th?,t is, to 
draw out of it instruction which may be applied at random 
to this or that interest of life, it is legitimate at times 
to come to the Bible from the standpoint of these interests 
and find what light the Bible has to shed upon them. The 
question that may be absorbing several students may be 



ATTENTION— INTEREST 39 

their relation to their employers. What the Bible has to 
say about the relation of the workman to his employer 
would be sure to arouse the interest of such and to command 
their attention. (A course of study based on such topics as 
these and covering a wide range of vital interests in the lif« 
of young men has, in fact, been prepared and has been foum 
to produce just the results here indicated. It is entitled 
fr Life Problems," and is published by the International 
Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations. ) Prof. 
Charles De Garmo has written a book on Interest and Edu- 
cation, the fundamental proposition of which is that interest 
arises primarily from the activities put forth by men to se- 
cure the requisites for their physical survival. Interest in 
this view of the case becomes an effort at self-expression. We 
must bear in mind that the biblical material abstractly con- 
sidered is not, as a rule, of overpowering interest to the boy 
or young man, but by associating the biblical material with 
that which is dominating his life at the time, a point of 
contact is effected and interest is grafted by which the 
dominant interest of the life is carried over into the biblical 
material. The ideas and concerns of the student's every- 
day life by this process reach out and absorb into them- 
selves the spiritual nutriment of the biblical material. All 
this is in accordance with a principle which Prof. James 
describes as follows : "Any object not interesting in itself 
may become interesting through becoming associated with 
an object in which an interest already exists. The two 
associated objects grow, as it were, together: the interest 
borrowed sheds its quality over the whole and thus things 
not interesting in their own right borrow an interest 
which becomes as real and as strong as that in any natively 
interesting thing." 

(2) Change. Novelty is another condition of sustained 
attention. The same routine followed in the instruction 
of each lesson will soon result in nagging interest. It must 



30 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

be remembered that sustained attention is the acquirement 
of a few, and new topics must be introduced, startling ques- 
tions offered, and every effort made to avoid sameness in 
the method of the lesson. Archbishop Whateley said 
that "curiosity is the parent of attention." 

(3) Concreteness. Untrained minds especially are not 
interested in abstract themes. Such themes must be put 
into concrete form in order to command attention. "The 
native interests of children lie altogether in sensation." 
That which lies at hand therefore will distract attention 
from abstract subjects presented by word of mouth. Illus- 
trations of the subject in hand drawn from the daily life of 
the student will contribute to this end. The use of object 
lessons and blackboard drawings will also serve to bring 
the subject within the grasp, and so within the range of 
interest of the student. If it is not practicable to use a 
blackboard, a class slate, or paper, may be drawn into 
requisition. Even the motions of illustrating on black- 
board, slate or paper, are better than nothing. 

(4) Concentration. The intensity of attention will vary 
according to the number of topics which the mind is called 
upon to consider within a given time. The teacher may 
possibly secure the attention of the student to a number of 
thoughts in a lesson hour, but the attention will be super- 
ficial in the case of each. A wise selection of subjects to 
be impressed should be made. Better a profound attention 
to one important lesson to be learned than a superficial 
interest in a number of topics. 

(5) Suggestiveness. The wise teacher will not exhaust 
the subject in hand and will leave avenues of interest to 
be followed out by the student. Adams says, "The in- 
teresting person supplies the premises but he leaves his 
hearers to draw their own conclusion. That is their share 
— a share that they enjoy — but your dull man does not spare 
a single detail." 



ATTENTION— INTEREST 41 

(6) The teacher should be interested in his subject. 
Interest is contagious. Nothing will so arouse the interest 
of the student in the subject as to note that the teacher 
himself is possessed with it, is on fire with it, is intent on 
conveying it to some one else. 

(7) Many devices have been suggested for the securing of 
attention aside from methods which grow out of the han- 
dling of the subject-matter. Some of these may be noted 
briefly as follows: Do not commence until attention is 
secured. Pause when attention is interrupted. Arrange 
for change of posture. Vary the method of procedure, but 
keep the lesson in view. Provide against distractions from 
the outside. Stop when there is evidence of fatigue. Eead 
in concert. Eead elliptically. (See "Attention," by Fitch, 
p. 54.) Prepare questions that will awaken thought. Ask 
questions first, then call the name of the student who is 
to answer. Ask questions promptly. Address question to 
wandering student. Use illustrations suited to the age 
and attainments of the student. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 
•Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 70-78, 138-149. 
*Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 91-115. 
*8even Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 28-47. 
How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 44-50. 
Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 32-46. 
Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, pp. 49-81. 
Teacher's Handbook of Psychology. Sully, pp. 135-167. 
Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 47-55. 
Education in Religion and Morals. Coe, pp. 112-118. 
The Art of Securing Attention. J. G. Fitch. (15 cents.) 
Securing and Retaining Attention. J. L. Hughes. (50 cents.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

In teaching you must simply work your pupil into such a 
state of interest in what you are going to teach him that every 
object of attention is banished from the mind; then reveal it 
to him so impressively that he will remember the occasion 
to his dying day; and finally fill him with devouring curiosity 
to know what the next steps in connection with the subject 
are. Talks to Teachers. James, p. 10. 

Until it pleases God to impart to a little child, either through 
the instrumentality of wise teaching or otherwise, an appetite 



42 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

for sacred truths, he has no natural curiosity about them. 
He is naturally very inquisitive about things that surround 
him; he is curious to learn about the sun, and the moon, and 
the stars; about distant countries; about the manners of 
foreigners; about birds and beasts and fishes; nay, even about 
machines and many other human inventions; but about the 
nature of God, and about man's relations to him, and the great 
truths of the revealed religion, you know that there is rarely 
any real curiosity in a child's mind. You do not find the appe- 
tite for such knowledge as this already existing there. You 
have to create it; and until you have created it, he cannot 
give you the fixed and earnest attention you want without an 
effort which is positively painful to him. The Art of Securing 
Attention. Fitch, p. 45. 

No good teaching without attention; no attention without 
interest; no interest without objects. And the argument holds 
good for all grades of students from the kindergarten to the 
university. The university of to-day has "object lessons" in 
almost every department of study, as witness the splendidly 
equipped laboratories, museums, maps, pictures, etc., that are 
in daily use. No teacher of a country school should for a 
minute think that he can teach well without illustrative ma- 
terial, any more than the professor of chemistry can without 
a laboratory. It is only necessary to remember that the ap- 
paratus must be adapted to the pupil's ability and advance- 
ment, and to the subject of instruction. Psychology in Edu- 
cation. Roark, p. 49. 

A young man applied to a city dry-goods jobber for a po- 
sition as salesman. "Can you sell goods?" was the merchant's 
first question. "I can sell goods to any man who really wants 
to buy," was the qualified rejoinder. "Oh, nonsense!" said 
the merchant. "Anybody can sell goods to a man who really 
wants to buy. I want salesmen who can sell goods to men 
who don't want to buy." Teaching and Teachers. Trum- 
bull, p. 139. 

There is a curious microscopic creature of the ponds, called 
the amoeba, the very name of which signifies constant change. 
Simple as its life is, the changes that take place in it are 
typical of the life-processes in all the higher animals, and 
even of the processes of the growth of the mind. What does 
this speck of jelly (or protoplasm) do in order to live? It 
has a power, in the first place, of stretching out a part of ifc 
self towards any object that may serve it as food, extemporiz- 
ing a sort of mouth. The second power which the amoeba has 
is that of retaining the valuable parts of the food material, 
by which means it maintains its life, repairs organic waste 
and grows. The mind has two similar powers. It stretches 
out toward that which answers to its hunger or its "interest," 
and so supplies itself with the materials whereby it lives and 
grows. This act of "stretching out towards" an object pre- 
sented to the mind we call attention. The Teacher and the 
Child. Mark, pp. 19-20. 



PERCEPTION— APPERCEPTION 43 



YII. PERCEPTION — APPERCEPTION" 

I. PERCEPTION 

1. Meaning of perception. The mind receives its knowl- 
edge of the outside world through nerves which have 
their source in the brain and extend to various portions of 
the body. We may call the nerves which carry impressions 
to the brain from the outside "incarrying," and those which 
convey impulses from the mind outward "outcarrying." 
Sensation is the mental state produced by a stimulus ap- 
plied from the outside to an incarrying nerve. The sharp 
point of a pin is applied to the end of my finger and 
immediately an impression is conveyed along the nerve lines 
to the mind. This impression is called sensation. Percep- 
tion is the recognition by the mind of that which causes the 
sensation. The infant without experience is unable to 
recognize the sensation as having been produced by a pin- 
point, and is therefore without a perception. Indeed, it is 
only in infancy that sensation is not followed immediately, 
as a rule, by perception. In later years the accumulations 
of experience enable the mind to refer the sensation im- 
mediately to the object producing it and so perception is 
formed. One sometimes has an undefined impression of 
discomfort in sleeping caused by insufficient covering. This 
may be called a sensation. When the sleeper is sufficiently 
aroused to understand that he is cold, and that he must 
draw more covering over him, he may be said to have a 
perception of cold. The agents through -which sensations 
are received are called the senses. These are five in num- 
ber, and are called taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. 



44 THE TEACHING OF BrBLE CLASSES 

These are here indicated in the order of their refinement, 
taste and smell being the lowest in form, while sight is the 
most delicate and complex. Perceptions received through 
the medium of the senses are sometimes called sense-per- 
ceptions. 

2. Training of perceptions. Great emphasis is laid to- 
day on the training of the perceptions in definiteness and 
accuracy. The mind is thus developed in its powers of 
observation. The forms of objects are receiving closer scru- 
tiny and the student taught to outline these not only by 
verbal description but also by hand. Manual training has 
been introduced into our systems of education, and the 
student is learning to work with his hand as well as with 
his head. The habit of observation, attention to details, 
precision, honest adherence to facts, and self-reliance, are 
among the intellectual advantages rising from this train- 
ing of the perceptions. 

But there is a moral value as well in the training of the 
senses and perceptions. Eoark notes that the education of 
the senses means the training of the mind to the proper 
use and enjoyment of the materials which the senses furnish 
to it, and adds that "the mind will see only what it is 
capable of seeing however much more there may be to see 
and however ready the eye and nerve fibre and brain may be 
to do their work." In the same direction, Miss Harrison, in 
her "Study of Child Nature," says that "the habit of con- 
trasting or comparing in material things leads to a fineness 
of distinction in higher matters. John Buskin and like 
thinkers claim that a perception of and love for the beauti- 
ful in nature leads directly into a discernment of the beau- 
tiful in the moral world." We may safely leave this train- 
ing of the senses and perceptions to the schools. The sub- 
ject is introduced here simply to emphasize the fact that 
in importing methods of manual training, including draw- 
ing, the making of models and other objects, into biblical 



PERCEPTION— APPERCEPTION 45 

instruction, we are bringing in the help of a natural and 
congenial agency, and thus once again religion is doing no 
more than claiming its own. 

Outside of the moral training involved in the work of 
making such objects, the use of them is of incalculable value 
to the teacher of the Bible. No teacher who desires to con- 
vey accurate conceptions of facts which are based on Orien- 
tal forms and customs will be without the map and black- 
board. Even a crude representation of a house in Pales- 
tine, with its access to the roof from the outside, would 
give meaning to the story of the letting down from the 
roof of the paralytic into the presence of Jesus. A brief 
consideration of the form of the Sea of Galilee with its 
mountainous environment would explain the sudden and 
severe storms which swept down upon that lake and threat- 
ened the safety of the boats upon its surface. A map of 
Palestine with lines indicating the tours of Jesus up and 
down, and hither and thither, gives a consecutiveness to 
the study of His life and works that is afforded by no other 
means. (Valuable suggestions concerning the materials 
needed and the methods of making pulp and other maps, 
are given in a course of study intended for Boys' Bible 
Classes, entitled Men of the Bible, published by the In- 
ternational Committee of Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tions, 3 West 29th street, New York. Map Modelling, by 
Maltby; Pictured Truth, by Pierce, and The Blackboard 
in the Sunday-School, by Bailey, will be of service. See also 
Lesson XIX, on Object Illustrations.) 

Every wise teacher will command as many channels of 
sensation as possible rather than allow other students or 
the school environment to do so. The more senses the 
teacher can command the greater the impression. The eye- 
gate should be used as well as the ear-gate in conveying 
knowledge to the mind, and to this should be added, as has 
already been indicated, the gateway of touch. 



46 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

II. APPERCEPTION" 

1. Definition. The derivation of this word from "ad" 
and "perception" gives an immediate clue to its meaning, 
which is that certain mental acts are added to perception. 
A more ordinary word for apperception is assimilation, 
which suggests that the mental process indicated by the 
word is akin to the taking up by the body of that which 
comes to it in the form of food or other sustenance, and 
digesting it, and making it a part of that which has prev- 
iously been received. It is a "spontaneous act of the mind 
in immediately seeking something in its store of ideas with 
which to classify a new idea ; the translation and interpre- 
tation of the new in the terms of the known." The South 
Sea Islanders who were familiar with sheep called the first 
hog that they ever saw a "grunting sheep." Mr. Rooper 
has given to a book on the subject of apperception the title 
"A Pot of Green Feathers," because that was the name 
applied to a pot of ferns by a child who had never seen 
ferns before. 

2. Application to Bible Teaching. It is important that 
the teacher should be familiar with this principle of mental 
operation and should work in accordance with it. In 
bringing to the student something new he should consider 
what the student has already acquired to which the new 
subject may be attached and into which it will fit. This 
body of acquisitions already secured by the student has 
been called "an apperceiving mass." The skilful teacher 
will consider whether the information that is to be con- 
veyed to the student in a given lesson will find a congenial 
and effective reception in the body of acquisitions which 
the student has already made. Especially is it important 
in the case of religious instruction, which has to do with 
thoughts and ideas which are not so easily handled as more 
concrete knowledge, that the teacher should convey the 



PERCEPTION— APPERCEPTION 47 

spiritual truth in such a way as that it will attach itself 
naturally and effectively to other thoughts and ideas which 
the student may already have acquired. For example, the 
fatherhood of God can be conveyed to the mind most effec- 
tively through the knowledge which the student already pos- 
sesses of the meaning of the fatherhood of ordinary family 
relations. ( See Lesson XIII on Adaptation for further de- 
velopment of this subject.) 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

The Teacher's Handbook of Psychology. Sully, pp. 106-133, 
168-206. 

*Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 67-68, 155-159, 
163-164. 

Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 33-36; 58-60, 155-168. 

The Blackboard in Sunday-school. Henry Turner Bailey, 
pp. 24-31. (75 cents.) 

*The Point of Contact. DuBois. 

A Pot of Green Feathers. (Apperception.) T. G. Rooper. 
(25 cents.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

The more different kinds of things a child gets to know by 
thus treating them and handling them, the more confident 
grows bis sense of kinship with the world in which he lives. 
An unsympathetic adult will wonder at the fascinated hours 
which a child will spend in putting his blocks together and 
rearranging them. But the wise education takes the tide at 
the flood, and from the kindergarten upward devotes the first 
years of education to training in construction and to object- 
teaching. I need not recapitulate here what I said awhile 
back about the superiority of the objective and experimental 
methods. They occupy the pupil in a way most congruous with 
the spontaneous interests of his age. They absorb him, and 
leave impressions durable and profound. Compared with the 
youth taught by these methods, one brought up exclusively by 
books carries through life a certain remoteness from reality; 
he stands, as it were, out of the pale, and feels that he stands 
so; and often suffers a kind of melancholy from which he 
might have been rescued by a more real education. Talks to 
Teachers. James, pp. 59-60. 

The teacher ought always to impress the class through as 
many sensible channels as he can. Talk and write on the 
blackboard, permit the pupils to talk, and make them write 
and draw; exhibit pictures, plans and curves; have your dia- 
grams colored differently in their various parts, etc., and out 
of the whole variety of impressions the individual child will 



48 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

find the most lasting ones for himself. Talks to Teachers. 
James, p. 139. 

Very often the teacher must introduce ideas into the mind 
of the pupil, not so much for their immediate importance as 
for the use to be made of them at future lessons. There is 
no greater charm for any one than to find that a certain fact 
known in one connection, suddenly becomes to be of use in an 
entirely new way. To maintain interest each new lesson 
should be impressed upon the background framed by all that 
has gone before. Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 37-38. 

Another problem in grafting interest is presented by the 
mother of a boy of twelve, who, she says, "cares for nothing 
but horses. He will not read, nor listen to reading." According 
to the principle of "grafting" the solution is simply to begin 
with some book about horses. Even so badly written a story 
as Black Beauty may serve as a stepping stone. Then per- 
haps Kipling's story — The Maltese Cat — of the horses who 
really played a polo game, and that other horse story in The 
Day's Work, A Walking Delegate. Then The Bell of Atri, by 
Longfellow, and the story of Pegasus in Hawthorne's Wonder 
Book. By that time, and even much earlier, the boy will easily 
be led to books of exploration, and books about strange people; 
and then, before you know it, your boy is interested in his- 
tory. The Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, p. 80. 

What does the child care about the revolt of the ten tribes 
or the repairing of the temple, or the woes upon the Phari- 
sees? Primarily nothing. These topics are as foreign to his 
thought as the problem of evil or the law of the correlation of 
forces. His only possible interest must come through associa- 
tion. If he has revolted from authority at home or in school, 
if the meeting-house in his village has been extensively re- 
paired within his memory, a wise teacher may be able to ex- 
cite his interest in similar experiences of people long ago. The 
boy may be led from his quarrel with his companions as to who 
should be president of the boys' club, to that of the disciples 
as to who should be first in the kingdom of God; and from 
the effects of wild companions upon himself to the effects of 
similar companions upon Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. 
The Blackboard in Sunday-school. Bailey, pp. 29-30. 



MEMORY— IMAGINATION 49 



Vni. MEMORY — IMAGINATION 

I. MEMORY 

1. The Office and Development of Memory. White de- 
fines memory as "the power of the soul to represent 
(re-present) and re-know objects previously known or ex- 
perienced/' There are three elements in this definition, the 
retaining of that which has passed through the mind, the 
reproduction of it, and the recognition of it. Conscious- 
ness has to do with the present, memory with the past. 
Without consciousness we should have no to-day, without 
memory no yesterday. Locke said that "without memory 
man is a perpetual infant." 

The memory receives a marked impulse at the age of six 
to eight, and grows notably from that time to the age of 
twelve or fourteen. This, therefore, is the memorizing age. 
Teachers who have students of twelve and upwards in their 
classes are apt to find them with memories vigorous and 
retentive. 

Memory is of two kinds, verbal and logical, according as 
that which is recalled is in the exact words or in the asso- 
ciation of ideas. An accurate verbal memory is oftentimes 
associated with inferior mentality, and is not the type to be. 
cultivated with the greatest assiduity. 

2. The Laws of Memory. While it has been claimed that 
the natural general retentiveness of the mind cannot be 
improved, in other words, that the original endowment of 
the memory cannot be enlarged, there are certain laws for 
the use of such powers of memory as have been vouchsafed 



50 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

to us that may make them more effective than they would 
otherwise be. These may be reduced to three : 

(1) Interest and Attention. It is of the utmost impor- 
tance in order to retention that the first impressions should 
be strong and clear-cut. That which comes to the mind 
with the greatest vigor and clarity at first will be retained 
and reproduced most easily. So it has been found of ad- 
vantage in order to memorize words that they should be 
repeated articulately. In this process attention is found to 
be most helpful, not compelled attention, but the attention 
growing out of interest. It is found that men usually have 
retentive memories in the things that are concerned with 
their daily pursuits. Their vital interest in these things 
insures retention. It is truly said that, "The art of memory 
is the art of paying attention." Joseph Cook put it in an- 
other way when he said that attention is the mother of 
memory and interest the mother of attention, and to secure 
memory one must secure both her mother and her grand- 
mother. 

(2) Repetition. Another reason why we remember the 
things that have to do with our daily pursuits is that we are 
constantly repeating them. Repetition should be varied. 
That which has been presented verbally should be repeated 
with the aid of the blackboard. That which has been pre- 
sented to the mind through the ear should be presented 
again through the eye, and again, if possible, through the 
touch, so that the impression may be made upon the mind 
through as many senses as possible. The central thought 
of the lesson should be repeated, each time in some new 
aspect. For the same reason frequent reviews are necessary. 

(3) Association. Coleridge mentions as three memory 
arts for students, sound logic, healthy digestion and a clear 
conscience. Those things which are most closely connected 
are most easily remembered. They may be connected by 
continuity, by similarity, as sign and thing signified, or as 



MEMORY— IMAGINATION 51 

cause and effect. The memory seems to call for hooks on 
which it may hang appropriate subjects of knowledge, and 
here, as in the household and office economy, the rule is 
found effective that there should be a place for everything 
and everything in its place. James says that the art of 
remembering is the art of thinking, and adds that the con- 
necting is the thinking. Dr. Pick urges that when we wish 
to fix a new thing in either our own mind or a pupil's, our 
conscious effort should not be so much to impress and re- 
tain as to connect it with something else already there. 

3. Memory and Character. It has been said that nothing 
is ever wholly forgotten. Coleridge mentions the case of 
an ignorant woman who when stricken down with a fever, 
in her delirium, gave utterance to Hebrew and Greek pas- 
sages. It was afterward explained that the woman had once 
been a servant in the family of a clergyman whose habit it 
had been to read the Scriptures aloud in the original He- 
brew and Greek. James tells us that "Prof. Ebbinghaus's 
experiments show that things which we are quite unable 
definitely to recall have nevertheless impressed themselves 
in some way upon the structure of the mind. We are dif- 
ferent for having once learned them. The resistances in 
our systems of brain paths are altered/' It cannot be too 
strongly impressed upon the mind of the student that every- 
thing that he takes into his mind contributes to its making 
or marring, and that, although we may not be aware of it 
at the time of its reception, that which is received makes its 
impress upon the mind and so on the character and will 
inevitably develop itself in later life. "Take heed what ye 
hear." (Mark 4 : 24.) "Thy word have I hid in mine heart 
that I might not sin against thee/' (Ps. 119 : 11.) 

4. Memorizing of Scriptures. So much protest has been 
entered against the memorizing by children of passages of 
Scripture the meaning of which is not clear to them, that 
we are in danger of going to the opposite extreme and the 



52 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

treasuring of the great scriptural landmarks in the memory 
is to a considerable extent ignored. The student is not shut 
up, however, to memorizing Scriptures with whose truths 
he is not familiar. If the Twenty-third Psalm may not be 
regarded as a picture of the experience of the young, the 
First Psalm must certainly have application to the life of 
the boy and the young man. The Ten Commandments and 
the Lord's Prayer, and many other utterances of Jesus, may 
be brought within the range of the memory age and should 
be added to the storehouse which the child is filling for 
future use. Euskin said that the twenty-six chapters of the 
Bible he learned from his mother constituted the most val- 
uable part of his education. Here again the laws for the 
government of the memory may be effectively employed. 
For example, in the First Psalm, to which reference has 
been made, the attention of the student might be called to 
the fact that there is a progression in the course of the 
wicked man so that at first he walks, then stands and finally 
sits among objectionable companions, and that there is also 
a progression in the wickedness of those with whom he 
associates who are first the ungodly and then sinners and 
finally the scornful. 

II. IMAGINATION 

1. The Office and Development of Imagination. White 
defines the imagination as "the power of the mind to repre- 
sent and modify or recombine objects previously known." 
Imagination is the picture-forming power of the mind. We 
need not confuse the work of the memory and that of the 
imagination as is sometimes done. The memory reproduces, 
the imagination modifies, combines, creates, but always 
works on the material which is furnished to it by the 
memory. 

Imagination manifests itself at an early age, sometimes 
as early as two years, and is very marked at three or four. 



MEMORY— IMAGINATION 53 

As with memory there seems to be an accession of imag- 
inative power at six or eight, and the teacher of students 
of twelve and over, while he will discover the imagination 
to be less wayward than at an earlier period, will find it 
vigorous and active and a helpful ally in the processes of 
development. 

Imagination has an important place in the daily occupa- 
tions of men no matter what those occupations may be. 
"There is no occupation in life," says Roark, "which may 
not be the better followed with the aid of imagination. The 
ditch digger who can see the effect of his next blow before it 
is struck ; the bricklayer who can see the next brick in posi- 
tion before it is placed : the blacksmith who can shape the 
bar to the ideal which he projects upon the anvil — these do 
far better work than those who can see nothing but their 
memory images or the things actually before them." Prof. 
Johnson shows how imagination is necessary in the work 
of the soldier, of the statesman, and of the historian. Tyn- 
dall, too, speaks of a "scientific imagination," which implies 
the ability to form reasonable hypotheses which afterward 
are subjected to tests and verification. 

2. The Imagination and Bible Study. Prof. Johnson has 
written a book which he has entitled "The Eeligious Uses of 
the Imagination." Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis has a chapter 
in one of his books on "The Imagination as the Architect of 
Manhood." Horace Bushnell once wrote an article bearing 
the title "The Gospel a Gift to the Imagination." The im- 
agination, then, has a very real place in moral and spiritual 
development. "Where there is no vision the people perish." 
More specifically, it is a help in the effective interpretation 
of the Bible in terms of to-day. Lange, in his book on Ap- 
perception, says that "when a child transports himself 
into the unknown and distant region of Bible history, there 
come to the help of the new names certain familiar and 
similar notions." This is not only a characteristic of child- 



54 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

hood, but belongs to the great prophets of the faith, men 
who with the aid of the imagination have brought the scenes 
of the Bible into the life of to-day and interpreted the his- 
torical past in modern terms. Dwight L. Moody was force- 
ful not only by reason of his great faith, but also because 
of his imagination. Henry Drummond says that imagina- 
tion is the primary faculty of the new evangelism. George 
J. Romanes said very truly that "to believe necessitates a 
spiritual use of the imagination." It should be noted also 
that the parables of Jesus are a creation of the imagination. 
Educators have recognized geography and history, in- 
cluding biography, as studies that are especially helpful to 
the imagination, and in which imagination may have the 
largest play. Boark says again: "To get anything out of 
history, the student must be able to put himself back into 
the time of which he reads — must see the people, their 
modes of dress, the circumstances of their daily life ; must 
feel their emotions and desires, their hopes and ambitions ; 
must understand their arts and sciences ; must make himself 
one of them — before he can form any adequate idea of 
events or the relations and causes of events in any given 
period. Young people can image these things with won- 
derful facility and fidelity, and will do so if only the teacher 
in oral lessons, or text-book drill, will supply the stim- 
ulus of interest, and set the material before the creative 
faculty in the right way. Still more is this true in the 
study of biography, for in this there is the powerful at- 
tractiveness of personality." Students should be encour- 
aged to transport themselves in imagination into the 
midst of the events recorded in the sacred history. They 
should be led to clothe the characters of the Bible with a 
new life and find themselves in familiar touch with these 
great personalities. In this way the imagination will make 
its contribution to character. The characters of the Bible 
will come to be the ideals of the student, "and ideals are the 



MEMORY— IMAGINATION 55 

standards which imagination forms and sets before us 
as the measures of our conduct/' Thus unconsciously will 
the student be led to make the best characters of the Bible 
his ideals and to formulate his life according to their 
models. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

Teacher's Handbook of Psychology. Sully, pp. 207-304. 

^Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 79-97, 109-117. 

The Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 51-58. 

*Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 116-143. 

Principles of Religious Education. Hodges, pp. 86-87. 

Memory Work in Character Forming. Walter L. Harvey in 
Proceedings of the Religious Education Association. Vol. II., 
pp. 31-37. ($2.00.) 

Religious Uses of the Imagination. E. H. Johnson. ($1.00.) 

A Man's Value to Society. Hillis, pp. 123-162. ($1.25.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

It is only classified knowledge — that is, knowledge placed 
in its real relations — that can be most effectively retained 
and produced for use. Unclassified knowledge is almost use- 
less. Some minds seem to be mere junk-shops of knowledge, 
filled with fragments and scraps of learning, tumbled together 
as they came, with no orderliness or method in their arrange- 
ment. Others are like a well-arranged, well-kept museum, 
where everything is properly named and classified, and where 
everything can be got without delay and with small effort. 
Psychology in Education. Roark, p. 92. 

The excesses of old-fashioned verbal memorizing, and the 
immense advantages of object-teaching in the earlier stages of 
culture, have perhaps led those who philosophize about teach- 
ing to an unduly strong reaction; and learning things by 
heart is now probably too much despised. For, when all is 
said and done, the fact remains that verbal material is, on 
the whole, the handiest and most useful material in which 
thinking can be carried on. * * * I should say, therefore, 
that constant exercise in verbal memorizing must still be an 
indispensable feature in all sound education. Nothing is more 
deplorable than that inarticulate and helpless sort of mind 
that is reminded by everything of some quotation, case, or 
anecdote, which it cannot now exactly recollect. Nothing, on the 
other hand, is more convenient to its possessor or more de- 
lightful to his comrades, than a mind able, in telling a story, 
to give the exact words of the dialogue or to furnish a quota- 
tion accurate and complete. Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 
131-132. 

It is probable that modern revolt from the tyranny of words 
has led us to undervalue the legitimate service of language in 



56 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

learning. In many cases, the embodiment of knowledge in 
precise verbal form is clearly of the highest consequence. 
This applies to such things as definitions and rules where the 
words are carefully selected for a special purpose and cannot 
be altered, and also to poetry and passages of prose where the 
literary form is an element of value. Even in learning such 
a subject as history the verbal memory has its rightful part. 
"What the teacher has to take care of is that he uses the child's 
verbal memory only as an auxiliary to the retention of ideas 
after these have been made clear and duly connected with one 
another, and never as a substitute for this, and that his pupil 
is not slavishly dependent on the particular words of 
the lesson or the textbook, but is able to put his knowledge 
into other forms when required to do so. That is to say, 
learning by heart is permissible if it does not degenerate into 
an unintelligent learning by rote. The Teacher's Handbook of 
Psychology. Sully, pp. 258-259. 

The classes of history textbooks intended for use in classes 
below the college freshman should contain a good deal of 
biography and should group events about the lives and deeds 
of eminent men and women. And even all the way through 
the college or university course, in other studies, as well as in 
history also, it is well to give imagination this element of the 
personal about which to group many of its combinations. The 
history of the struggles and achievements of great mathemati- 
cians, chemists, physicists, serves to intensify the creative 
power of other minds. It is mainly through its exercise in 
literature, history and biography, that imagination builds the 
moral character. In this building it has its highest function. 
Psychology in Education. Roark, p. 215. 

Parents and teachers should set before boys and girls the 
best characters in literature, history, and biography; not in 
any goody-goody way, not with too much stress upon the de- 
sirability of imitating them, but in a frank, cordial, rational 
way. Men and women cannot afford to do otherwise with 
themselves. What the imagination habitually contemplates, 
that will it form into the ideals in whose image we make our- 
selves. Psychology in Education. Roark, p. 216. 



FEELINGS— WILL 57 



IX. FEELINGS — WILL 

I. FEELINGS 

The mind has three functions designated respectively as 
knowing, feeling and willing. We have considered some 
of the powers that are concerned in the act of knowing: 
attention, perception, memory, imagination. We now turn 
to the feelings. It should be borne in mind that these 
powers are not separated to such an extent as the various 
designations of them would seem to indicate. This division 
of the powers of the mind is to accommodate our own 
thought about them. As a fact there are few processes 
of the mind in which attention, perception, memory and 
imagination are not all involved. 

1. Definition and Classification. Perhaps the simplest 
definition of feelings is that furnished by Roark in which 
he describes them as "mental states of pleasure and pain." 
The following classification of the feelings has been tab- 
ulated from Sully's description of them in his Handbook 
of Psychology (pp. 407-507), the feelings noted in paren- 
theses being additions to the author's classification: 

( 1 ) Bodily feelings — sense feelings : 

a. Organic, as feeling warmth and cold. 

b. Special sense, as feeling from touching objects, 

soft and smooth, or hard and rough. 

(2) Mental feelings — emotions : 

a. Instinctive or egoistic — fear, anger, rivalry, love 
of activity, of approbation (envy, jealousy, hate, 
shame, pride, ambition). 



58 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

b. Social — love, sympathy (imitativeness, pity, phi- 

lanthropy, patriotism). 

c. Sentiments — 

(a) Intellectual — Wonder, curiosity. Object, 

truth. 
(5) ^Esthetic— Taste. Object, the beautiful. 
(c) Moral — Reverence for duty and moral law. 
Object, moral goodness. 

2. "The Premiership of the Feelings." This is the phrase 
of Patterson DuBois to describe the important place feel- 
ings hold in our mental processes and in the economy of 
the world. "Feeling," he says, "rules the world. It was 
not the intellectual convietions alone of Paul, Savonarola^ 
Luther, Knox, Bunyan, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Wilberforce, 
Washington, Mrs. Stowe, Whittier or Lincoln, that wrought 
such reformations, but rather their ardor, their zeal, cour- 
age, sympathy, their hates and loves, their hopes and fears 
— in short, those stirrings of the soul which stand imme- 
diately behind the will as goads and credentials to action." 

The feelings are oftentimes not given their due place 
because the mention of the name brings to the thought 
those feelings which when not controlled result in harm, 
as anger, envy, jealousy and hate. A glance at the cate- 
gory of feelings given above, however, will convince one 
as to the large place the feelings have in all helpful rela- 
tions. 

3. Direction. The feelings should be kept under control 
because in full sway they overpower and subdue the func- 
tion of knowing. Perception, memory, judgment, are flung 
to the winds when the feelings are in the mastery. By the 
control of the feelings it is not intended that they should 
be repressed. Such feelings as fear, anger, the love of 
activity, pride and ambition, have their proper place. In- 
deed it would not be difficult to show that nearly all feel- 
ings have their good as well as their evil aspects. It is said 



FEELINGS— WILL 59 

of the Puritans that they over-emphasized the intellect, and 
under-emphasized the feelings, and one of the arraignments 
of their descendants is that they have to too large an extent 
repressed the emotional life. Sully truly says that the 
teacher "should hear in mind that the frequent wounding of 
any feeling is apt to deaden it. A boy who never gets recog- 
nition when he feels that he deserves it tends to grow 
indifferent to it; or, if he be unusually sensitive, an even 
worse result may ensue in the shape of a secret feeling 
of resentment at injustice." 

The feelings should be wisely directed towards right con- 
duct. The awakening of emotions which do not find an 
immediate outlet into channels of helpful activity will re- 
act unfavorably upon the person in whom the emotions are 
produced. Sully says "The worth of the social and moral 
feelings resides in their organic attachment as motives 
to definite lines of conduct." Touching stories descriptive 
of human need and suffering should therefore be sparingly 
used except as they point the way to some specific case of 
need or suffering which may be relieved. The stirring of the 
emotions in evangelistic meetings unless it be followed by 
personal intercourse with the person displaying such emo- 
tion and faithful following up until feeling results in action 
and action in conduct, is detrimental rather than helpful. 

4. Development. The feelings call for wise development : 
fear in the apprehension of that which injures the life, 
anger in the denunciation of that which is wrong, pride in 
elation over that which contributes to character, ambition 
in the direction of the highest and best things. Systematic 
attention should be given to the cultivation of the feelings. 
Charles Darwin tells us in his Autobiography how he failed 
to develop the sentimental side of his life, and came to dis- 
like music and poetry. It would be well for those whose 
occupations call for the almost exclusive use of the powers 
of sensation, perception or judgment to read poetry system- 



60 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

atically. The higher emotions should be cultivated espe- 
cially in the development of the religious life. Devotional 
books should have a larger place in the reading of Christian 
people. The Psalms which are pre-eminently the expression 
of religious feelings constitute the most valuable reading 
for this purpose. 

5. Use of the Feelings in Teaching. The feelings may be 
utilized by the teacher in the work of instruction to great 
advantage. There may be generated in the student a gen- 
erous spirit of rivalry to surpass his fellows in the gaining 
of knowledge; there may be stirred within him emulation 
of the best points in the character and conduct of those 
about him ; curiosity may well be excited in order to arouse 
interest in the subject in hand; wonder may be aroused 
which will lead to the pursuit of further knowledge (Max 
Muller says that "all science begins and ends in wonder") ; 
a sense of shame over failure to accomplish, and of pride 
over accomplishment, may be appealed to ; a spirit of esprit 
de corps which shall result in a desire to have the class 
or school stand well may be stimulated; admiration for 
noble characters studied and the susceptibility to influences 
of personality may be utilized. "Would you stir the emo- 
tion or heroism of some youth/' says Dr. Hillis, "ply him 
with great epochs and hours in the life of Lincoln or the 
biography of Gladstone. Stories of courage stir the emotion 
of courage. Tales of heroism arouse the feelings that are 
heroic." For this reason the biography of the Bible con- 
stitutes a most desirable source of instruction for those 
whose characters are to be developed and conduct influ- 
enced. The grandeur of the character of Moses, the courage 
of David, the heroism of Paul, the manliness of Christ, will 
stir feelings of admiration and emulation which cannot but 
result in nobler character and improved conduct. 



FEELINGS— WILL 61 



II. THE WILL 



1. Roark defines the will as the power of the mind to de- 
termine and execute. The will should be respected. It is 
the sovereign power of the mind. The breaking of the 
child's will has been recommended. John Wesley wrote: 
"Break your child's will in order that it may not perish. 
Break its will as soon as it can speak plainly — or even before 
it can speak at all. It should be forced to do as it is told 
even if you have to whip it ten times running. Break its 
will in order that its soul may live." This treatment is as 
pernicious as the repression of the feelings, and the wise 
course, as in the case of the feelings, is in the direction of 
the will rather than in its repression. Henry Clay Trum- 
bull truly says that a broken will is worth as much in its 
sphere as a broken bow. Indeed, the development of char- 
acter means that the will shall have as wide a latitude as it 
is possible to give to it. This involves risk and danger, 
but in the interests of personality and character there is no 
other course. 

2. The will should be directed. The training and de- 
velopment of the will mean the training and development of 
all conscious forces of mind so that the movement in re- 
sponse to sensations and suggestions may naturally be in 
the right direction. To this end the function of knowing 
should be developed so that from the wider range of choices 
presented the most helpful selection may be made. McAl- 
lister says "that we find that the development of the will 
consists in attaining knowledge — that is, in securing a stock 
of ideas, in consistently holding on to right ideas no matter 
how unpleasant, and in acquiring habits of acting upon 
these definite ideas which we call right. Let us not forget 
that preaching, talking about being good, soon becomes a 
bore. Let us seize upon practical opportunities and lead 



62 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

the pupils not only to feel and to think, but to do." This 
is the philosophy of the title of the famous sermon by Dr. 
Chalmers on "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection," 
the new interest and the new desire outweighing and there- 
fore checking the old interest and desire. 

3. The will has to do with character. It has been well 
said that "character may be defined as the sum of our 
choices." Character is not only indicated by the kind of 
choices that we make, but it is also affected by those choices. 
The character may be developed by the choosing of the 
more difficult course when two courses of action are pre- 
sented for selection. It was in this way that the character 
of Moses was formed who chose affliction with his own 
people rather than the luxury of the Egyptian palace. 

It is not according to the economy of God that men 
should be forced into His kingdom. The Maker of the will 
respects the will, and offers a choice to those whom He 
invites into His service. "I have set before you life and 
death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life that both 
you and thy seed may live : That thou mayest love the Lord 
thy God, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him : for He is 
thy life and the length of thy days." (Deut. 30:19, 20.) 

"The problem of personal choice," says Coe, "does not 
normally grow acute until the beginning or middle of ado- 
lescence ; that is, not much before the years from twelve to 
fifteen, though it may rise in minor and gradually increas- 
ing degree before that age." This is the age then when 
special attention should be given to the deliberate choices. 
We have found in the study of adolescence that it is during 
the latter part of this period that the youth is most likely 
to make the supreme choice in the selection of the spiritual 
principles and ideals of his life. Every effort should there- 
fore be made at this time to give sway to the trend of his 
nature in this direction, and to check those forces which 
would stand in the way of his best choice. 



FEELINGS— WILL 63 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 
The Feelings. 

Teacher's Hand Book of Psychology. Sully, pp. 407-507. 

Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 118-147. 

Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 45-63. 

*The Natural Way. Patterson DuBois, pp. 69-173. 

*Imago Christi. James Stalker, pp. 300-313. ($1.50.) 

Mistakes in Teaching. James L. Hughes, pp. 105-106. (50 
cents. ) 
The Will. 

Teacher's Hand Book of Psychology. Sully, pp. 508-571. 

Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 150-154, 217-228. 

Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 169-196. 

The Natural Way. Patterson DuBois, pp. 278-314. 

Education in Religion and Morals. Coe, pp. 187-191. 

*Proceedings Religious Education Association. Cloyd N. Mc- 
Allister, Vol. II., pp. 326-329. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Mere emotion that evaporates without a deed is weakening. 
Hence the harm of crying at the theatre and "with no lan- 
guage but a cry." Any working of the feelings without op- 
portunity to act is likely to result in impairment. It produces 
a soft sentimentality. Hence the common outcry against 
emotionalism. The Natural Way. DuBois, p. 170. 

The teacher will endeavor by every legitimate means to in- 
duce those for whom he labors to express every newly aroused 
religious emotion and purpose in some definite act which will 
tend to make it of permanent moral effect. To arouse emo- 
tion which produces no effect on conduct is a serious peda- 
gogical mistake. Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school. 
Burton and Mathews, p. 103. 

It is undoubtedly true that we ought not to think too much 
about our own feelings, dance attendance on them, or use them 
unduly as a plea and a motive. A friend of mine used to say 
that he had no patience with people who are always getting 
their feelings hurt — that is, using their hurt feelings as a 
line of defence for their own actions. On the other hand, 
our best success in life depends largely upon our recognition 
of the feelings of others. The Natural Way. DuBois, p. 96. 

It is not a good plan to stir the emotions of impenitent 
scholars by any earnest appeals without giving the scholars 
thus aroused a specific and an immediate opportunity to decide 
at once for the right. If scholars are moved to strong feeling 
concerning their spiritual condition and needs without being 
called on to take a stand at once on the side of duty, they 
are injured rather than helped through the involved strain 
upon their feelings. Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 
350. 

Darwin says: "Up to the age of thirty or beyond it, poetry 



64 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

of many kinds gave me great pleasure; and even as a school- 
boy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the 
historical plays. I have also said that pictures formerly gave 
me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for 
many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry. I have 
tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it so intolerably 
dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste 
for pictures or music. My mind seems to have become a kind 
of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections 
of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that 
part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes depend, I 
cannot conceive. * * * If I had to live my life again, I would 
have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music 
at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain 
now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. 
The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possi- 
bly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the 
moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our 
nature." Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 71-72. 

We may then lay it down for certain that every representa- 
tion of a movement awakens in some degree the actual move- 
ment which is its object; and awakens it in a maximum de- 
gree whenever it is not kept from so doing by an antagonistic 
representation present simultaneously to the mind. The ex- 
press fiat, or act of mental consent to the movement, comes 
in when the neutralization of the antagonistic and inhibitory 
idea is required. But that there is no express fiat needed 
when the conditions are simple, the reader ought now to be 
convinced. Psychology (Briefer Course). James, p. 426. 

One school of psychologists would have us believe that there 
is no such thing as will; that all movements, even in the 
adult, are due to reflex action or to the direct influence of. 
motor ideas: that is when we think of some movement it is 
desirable to make, the idea stimulates the appropriate motor 
nerves, and these, discharging into the requisite muscles, cause 
them to contract. This theory "short-circuits" the current 
of action, as an electrician might say, and cuts out will alto- 
gether. The eye is stimulated too much by a strong light; 
the painful impulse flows into consciousness, and starts an 
idea of lowering the window blind; this idea starts the mole- 
cules to vibrating in the motor nerves running to the arm and 
hand, and by the contraction thus caused in the proper muscles 
the blind is lowered. This fairly illustrates the materialistic 
explanation of will action. Psychology in Education. Roark, 
pp. 151-152. 



HABIT 65 



X. HABIT 

1. Definition and description. Habit has been defined 
by Koark as "that condition of the mind or body which is 
manifested in the tendency to unconscious repetition of acts 
or states." Suliy says of habit that "we are said to do any- 
thing under the influence of habit when we carry out a 
familiar and oft-repeated action in response to some initiat- 
ing stimulus with scarcely any conscious or psychical pur- 
pose or any attention to the precise form of the action." 
The most simple and yet most profound definition of habit 
is that it is "second nature." 

All authors agree that habit has a physiological basis, 
that the sensation which the nerve carries to the brain for 
the first time cuts a path, speaking figuratively, through 
the brain, and that the same sensation, if repeated and not 
prevented from doing so, will follow the same path. When 
this has been done so many times as to be repeated uncon- 
sciously, habit has been formed. 

Unfortunately the word habit is popularly associated with 
tendencies to repetition of that which is evil. As in the 
case of the feelings, the word suggests bad habits rather 
than good habits. As James says, "We talk of the smoking- 
habit, and the swearing-habit, and the drinking-habit, but 
not of the abstention-habit, or the moderation-habit, or the 
courage-habit, but the fact is that our virtues are habits as 
much as our vices." Even so intelligent a writer as E. L. 
Stevenson says, "Evil was called Youth until he was old 
and then he was called Habit." We must not ignore the 
fact, however, that habit refers as distinctly to tendencies to 
the repetition of the good in our lives as of the evil, and 



66 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

that moral character, as we shall see later, is in a sense 
the sum of all good habits. 

2. The importance of habit. We have only to consider 
for a moment how large a part habit plays in the affairs 
of our daily life to realize something of its importance. 
James says, "Ninety-nine hundredths or, possibly, nine 
hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of our activity is 
purely automatic and habitual, from our rising in the morn- 
ing to our lying down each night. Our dressing and un- 
dressing, our eating and drinking, our greetings and part- 
ings, our hat-raisings and giving way for ladies to precede, 
nay, even most of the forms of our common speech, are 
things of a type so fixed by repetition as almost to be 
classed as reflex actions. To each sort of impression, we 
have an automatic, ready-made response/' 

What a gain this is in the actual living of one's life must 
be very apparent. When we consider with what pains and 
at what cost the child learns to walk, later to talk, and 
later to read, who can estimate the loss of time and energy 
that would be involved if each of these acts instead of be- 
coming a habit had to be performed by a conscious effort of 
the will throughout one's life ? Some one has made the in- 
teresting though, perhaps, fanciful suggestion, that orig- 
inally the heartbeats of man and the higher animals may 
have been produced by a conscious act. 

Another consideration that enforces the importance of 
habit is its unalterableness when formed, except by the 
most strenuous exertions, and then sometimes without com- 
plete success. Habit has been compared to paper which 
easily resumes the folds according to which it has been fold- 
ed before; but, unfortunately, unlike the paper which may 
easily be folded in a new place, the mind does not so easily 
lend itself to a different impression. One hardly knows 
whether or not to agree with James that "nothing we ever 
do is in strict scientific literalism wiped out," but whether 



HABIT 67 

absolutely true or not, the chains that bad habit produces 
are of a kind from which the body and mind free them- 
selves only by agonizings and tears. The reverse is also 
true and it is a source of comfort that good habits fixed are 
not easily broken up at the solicitation of evil. 

"Sow a thought and reap a deed. 
Sow a deed and reap a habit. 
Sow a habit and reap a character. 
Sow a character and reap a destiny." 

So true is the above statement that habit may even inter- 
fere with development unless carefully guarded. Not only 
do bad habits prevent the development of the character 
in right directions, but good habits, while they are not at all 
contradictory to, but rather in harmony with moral char- 
acter, fall short of adding to the sum of a person's moral 
and spiritual attainments. For example, a person may have 
formed right habits with reference to the use of language 
which is good as far as it goes, but something more than 
habit will be needed to enlarge his vocabulary and deepen 
his appreciation of the best literature. As Sully says, 
"Fixity in definite directions must not exclude plasticity 
and modifiability in others. The complete and absolute rule 
in habit marks the arrest of development." 

3. The formation of habits. The physical basis of habit 
suggests the importance of formation of right habits in 
early life. Not only is this important because of the fixity 
of habits that come with a period of years, but also, and 
more especially, because of the plasticity of the nervous 
system early in life. Childhood is, of course, the chief 
habit-forming period of life. It is then the largest pro- 
portion of physical habits are formed, and it is then that 
habits are changed with the least difficulty. This is recog- 
nized in such universal proverbs as the one : "As the twig 
is bent so is the tree inclined." The period under twenty 



68 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

is important in the formation of mental and personal habits. 
It is said that a person rarely ever learns to speak a lan- 
guage without an accent after twenty. The training of this 
period in habits of thought and speech, in manners and 
conduct, are apt to continue with a person through his life. 
The period between twenty and thirty is important in its 
formation of professional and business habits. 

James gives four rules for the forming of good habits, 
and concludes his illuminating chapter on Habit with the 
remark that we append to this summary of his laws : - — 

(1) Launch yourself with as strong and decided an ini- 
tiative as possible. 

(2) Never suffer an exception to occur until the new 
habit is securely rooted in your life. 

(3) Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on 
every resolution you make and on every emotional prompt- 
ing you may experience in the direction of the habits you 
aspire to gain. 

(4) Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little 
gratuitous exercise every day. "As we become permanent 
drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints 
in the moral, and authorities and experts in the practical 
and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours 
of work. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot 
of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he 
keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may 
safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect 
certainty count on waking up some fine morning to find 
himself one of the competent ones of his generation in what- 
ever pursuit he may have singled out." 

As has already been said, moral character may be re- 
garded, in a sense, as the sum of all good habits. "Virtue 
itself," Dr. Maudsley says, "is not safely lodged until it 
has become a habit." The development of character, how- 
ever, implies the breaking up of evil habits and the sup- 



HABIT $9 

planting of them by good habits. Here come in the stress 
and discipline of life, which round out manhood and make 
character complete. How applicable this is to religious ex- 
perience and instruction must be apparent. The formation 
of habits in religious exercises, in acts of unselfish service, 
in turning away from solicitations to evil, is all important 
in the development of the spiritual life. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

Teacher's Hand Book of Psychology. Sully, pp. 72-73, 159- 
161, 204-205, 399, 414, 422, 524-529, 551-555. 

*Talks to Teachers. James, pp. 64-78. 

Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 26-27, 55-56. 

*Work. Hugh Black, Chapter 2 on "The Habit of Work." 
($1.50.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

We usually hear of the evil of this great force, the power 
of bad habits and the difficulty of breaking them. Habit is 
spoken of as if it were a diabolic influence menacing us on 
every side. We forget that it is a law of life designed for 
its best interests. We forget that it is full of good and bless- 
ing, and is meant not to destroy but to conserve and strength- 
en human life. Work. Hugh Black, p. 40. 

First, habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate 
and diminishes fatigue. Man is born with a tendency to do 
more things than he has ready-made arrangements for in his 
nerve-centres. Most of the performances of other animals 
are automatic. But in him the number of them is so enor- 
mous that most of them must be the fruit of painful study. 
If practice did not make perfect, nor habit economize the 
expense of nerves and muscular energy, he would be in a 
sorry plight. As Dr. Maudsley says: "If an act became no 
easier after being done several times, if the careful direction 
of consciousness were necessary to its accomplishment on each 
occasion, it is evident that the whole activity of a lifetime 
might be confined to one or two deeds — that no progress could 
take place in development. A man might be occupied all day 
in dressing and undressing himself; the attitude of his body 
would absorb all his attention and energy; the washing of 
his hands or the fastening of a button would be as difficult 
to him on each occasion as to the child on its first trial; and 
he would, furthermore, be completely exhausted by his exer- 
tions. Psychology (Briefer Course). James, p. 138. 

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most 
precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all 
within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of 
fortune from envious uprisings of the poor. It alone pre* 



70 THB TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

vents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life from be- 
ing deserted by those brought up to tread therein. It keeps 
the fisherman and the deck-hand at sea through the winter; it 
holds the miner in his darkness, and nails the countryman 
to his log-cabin and his lonely farm through all the months of 
snow; it protects us from invasion by the natives of the desert 
and the frozen zone. It dooms us all to fight out the battle of 
life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice, and 
to make the best of* a pursuit that disagrees, because there is 
no other for which we are fitted, and it is too late to begin 
again. Psychology (Briefer Course). James, p. 143. 

It is now generally accepted that habit has a physical basis 
and that it is dependent upon molecular changes in the brain 
or, to speak rather crudely, upon brain paths through which 
nervous force makes its escape in time of neural excitation. 
These paths have been likened to the channels which a little 
stream of water cuts for itself as it falls upon a pile of sand. 
To state the same thought in another figure, just as a coat 
settles into wrinkles to fit the peculiar form of the wearer's 
body and will not easily modify itself to another form, so the 
mind takes a certain form of nervous discharge or manifests 
a special form of neural activity. Again it may be illus- 
trated by a paper which, folded in a particular place, ever 
after tends to fold in the same place. The Child and the 
Bible. Hubbell, p. 48. 

Locke says as the years advance, they bring greater freedom 
from restraint and the boy must often be left to his own guid- 
ance because no mentor can be ever at his side except the 
one created in his own mind by sound principles and steady 
habits. It is true this is the best and safest one and therefore 
worthy of the highest consideration; for we must expect no- 
thing from precautionary maxims and good precepts, though 
they be deeply impressed on the mind, beyond the point at 
which practice has changed them to firm habits. SabiU Paul 
Radestock, p. 4. 



THE SPIRITUAL NATURE • 71 



XI. THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 

We have considered the physical nature with its varied 
relations to the other powers, the mental nature with its 
three-fold function of knowing, feeling and willing, and, 
more specifically, such powers of knowing as attention, in- 
terest, sensation, perception, apperception, memory and 
imagination. We turn now to the spiritual nature. Before 
proceeding, however, we ought again to remind ourselves 
that these divisions of our powers do not exist in their 
actual operation but are devices for the purpose of facilitat- 
ing our thought concerning them and to aid in their de- 
scription. Man is not a body plus a mind plus a spirit. 
As we have seen, he is not even a spirit plus a mind and 
body; but he is a man, spirit, mind and body, and what 
we call the spiritual nature is simply the right attitude of 
the entire man in all his powers toward what is. Of faith, 
for example, which is a spiritual power, the author of "Lux 
Mundi" says, "It is not a faculty, but the whole man in re- 
lationship to God," and Dr. Cuyler says of faith, "Faith is 
winged intellect : man's best thought in his best moments." 
This prefatory statement has an application which we must 
note as we pass along. The distinction which we some- 
times make between intellectual and devotional Bible study, 
may be very misleading. If it means that we conceive of 
a Bible study that may be engaged in without the use 
of the intellectual powers, and for the cultivation of a spir- 
itual nature which we think of as being entirely separate 
from our mental nature, we shall make a grievous error. 
We must remember what has already been stated, that the 



•j-2 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

same mental faculties are involved in the reception of spir- 
itual truth, as in the reception of any other form of truth, 
and that there is no access for knowledge to the spiritual 
nature except through the intellectual faculties. It has 
been truly said that "all intellectual study is not devotional, 
hut all devotional study should be intellectual as well." 

1. Eeality of the spiritual nature. We are told that God 
made man in His own image, and from the time of that 
statement down to that of its modern correlative, that "re- 
ligion is the life of God in the soul of man," there has been 
a recognition, more or less distinct, of that element in man 
which responds to and reaches out for a divine being. It is 
this element within a man that we know as the spiritual 
nature, or as the religious sense, or religious instinct, or 
religious impulse. According to Coe, there are three things 
that the assumption of such a nature does not imply, and 
three. things that it does imply. Negatively, it does not 
imply : ( 1 ) That the possessor of this religious nature is all 
right as he is; (2) that he can grow properly by a merely 
"natural" process without divine help; (3) that the life 
principle can take care of itself without our help. Posi- 
tively, it implies: (1) That the possessor of this religious 
nature has more than a passive capacity for spiritual things, 
but that just as animals go forth in search of food, so a 
positive spiritual nature goes forth spontaneously in search 
of God; (2) that nothing short of union with God can 
really bring a human being to himself, but that failing to 
find Him, we lose even ourselves; (3) that the successive 
phases in spiritual growth are so many phases of a grow- 
ing consciousness of the divine meaning of life. ("Educa- 
tion in Eeligion and Morals," pp. 61 and 62.) 

It is at this point that we find the strongest argument 
for the existence of God as well as for the existence of 
a spiritual nature in man. We find in all normal men 
a reaching out for a power beyond them, and as the 



THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 73 

turning of the bird towards the warmer climate implies 
the existence of such a climate, as the turning of the 
fish towards the sea implies the existence of such a sea, so 
the stretching out of the soul towards a power higher than 
itself, its refusal to be satisfied until union is effected with 
God, implies that God must be. "Thou hast made us f cl 
Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in 
Thee." 

The reality of the spiritual nature has a vital applica- 
tion to the religious instruction of boys. To appreciate the 
force of this application we must revert to our definitions 
of Teaching and Education : "Teaching is simply helping 
the mind to perform its function of knowing and grow- 
ing." "Teaching is the process by which one mind from 
set purpose produces the life-unfolding process in another." 
"Teaching is enabling another to re-state the truth in the 
terms of his own life." "Education is the process of de- 
velopment or drawing out of the faculties of the individual 
man and training for the various functions of life." Ee- 
ligious instruction or education, then, will draw out the 
powers of the spiritual nature and train them for the func- 
tions of life. Coe has indicated how a different concep- 
tion arose in earlier years: "Christianity's first great task 
was to win men from heathenism. It had to deal with 
maturity, not with childhood, and it was thus that the 
standpoint of maturity appears to have become all-con- 
trolling. A mature heathen could become a Christian only 
by a decisive transformation. He must change from one 
set of religious beliefs to another, from one set of re- 
ligious practices to another, from the permitted immoral- 
ities of paganism to the ethical standard of Christianity. 
He must repent and have a new heart, and baptism was the 
culmination or even the means of this inner renewal. Not 
unnaturally it came to be taken for granted that there is 
only one process whereby one can become a Christian — the 



74 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

process that appears in its fulness in the conversion of the 
pagan. The child before baptism was unregenerate, but 
by baptism was regenerated, or, before some inner experi- 
ence of regeneration, he was in a condition of depravity 
which must be supernaturally removed before spiritual life 
could begin." It was to meet this belief that Horace Bush- 
nell wrote his book on "Christian Nurture/' in 1847, in 
which he took the position that "the child is to grow up 
a Christian and never know himself as being otherwise." 
Or, as another stated it later, "Instead of saying that a 
person must be converted to God in order to be religious, we 
may say that he must be converted from God to evil before 
he can be irreligious." In order to proper instruction, then, 
the religious nature of the normal child should be expected 
to develop and ripen into such a consciousness of God and 
such a relation to Christ that the voluntary decision to en- 
ter upon the Christian life will not be in the nature of a 
cataclysm, but a natural stepping over the line. 

2. The powers of the spiritual nature. The chief power 
of the spiritual nature is faith. Faith is defined by the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews as "the substance of 
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It has 
also been denned variously as the eye of the soul, as the 
nerve of sensation for the soul, as the sixth sense, as spir- 
itual perception. In all of these definitions the dominant 
thought seems to be that faith is the power through which 
man receives a knowledge of spiritual realities. The analogy 
between sense perception of material objects and faith per- 
ception of spiritual verities is interesting and suggestive. 
As in sense perception the essential element is the recogni- 
tion of the object which causes the sensation, so in faith 
perception the vital feature is the recognition by the soul 
of the Divine Being or the spiritual truth producing the 
spiritual thrill. As in the case of seeing with the eye it is 
only the abnormal man who is without the power, so in the 



THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 75 

case of seeing by faith it is only the man who has destroyed 
his power of seeing, or otherwise been brought into an ab- 
normal condition, who is without spiritual perception. Dr. 
Abbott says, "The religious perception is far more common 
than art perception ; the capacity to know, honor, and love 
God is far more widely found than the capacity to appre- 
ciate music. Indeed it would be quite within bounds to 
say that in the world of humanity those who have no appar- 
ent power to perceive the invisible divinity and no spontane- 
ous impulse to reverence it, are fewer in number than those 
who lack the organs of sight and hearing, and that the testi- 
mony to the reality of a God, directly and immediately 
though spiritually perceived, is quite as uniform as the tes- 
timony to the reality of a physical world by the senses of 
sight and hearing." As the power of the eye may be culti- 
vated so the power of spiritual perception may be developed 
by appropriate means, and as the failure to use the eye for a 
series of years would result in impairing its sight, so the 
failure to avail one's self of the power of spiritual percep- 
tion would result in the loss of that power. "The natural 
man," says St. Paul, "receiveth not the things of the spirit 
of God, for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he 
know them because they are spiritually discerned." (I Cor. 
2:14.) 

3. The stages of growth in the spiritual nature. As the 
analogy of the office of the mental powers served us in a 
study of the spiritual power of faith, so the analogy of the 
development of the mental faculties will serve us in appre- 
ciating the growth of the spiritual powers. We have seen 
that perception, the memory, imagination, and other men- 
tal powers have their appropriate times in the life when 
they begin to assert themselves, and special periods when 
the range of their activities widen. We might expect, 
therefore, to find stages of growth in the spiritual nature of 
the individual in accordance with which specific religious 



76 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

experiences might be looked for at appropriate periods. For 
example, we have seen that the development of the spiritual 
nature during the period of adolescence is such that we may 
reasonably expect the boy at that time to pass into a con- 
scious acceptance of religious responsibility. The most 
general application of this fact to religious instruction is 
that we must not expect the boy to have the religious ex- 
periences of the adult. St. Paul says again, "When I was a 
child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought 
as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish 
things." (I Cor. 13:11.) Drummond said of cant, that 
an old woman has her religion, and a boy has his religion, 
and that when the boy apes the religion of the old woman, 
he is guilty of cant. T*he putting of the language of adult 
experiences into the lips of the youth not only makes him 
unnatural, but must be detrimental to his real religious 
development. The same remark would apply to the as- 
sumption by boys or men of one temperament of a type of 
religious experience that belongs to another temperament, 
or the expression of sentiments that go with the meditative 
and aesthetic characteristics by those in whom the militant 
and active elements are most pronounced, or the assumption 
of the feminine element, in their religious life, by boys 
and men. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

*The Epistle to the Hebrews. Chapter XI. 

The Spiritual Life. Coe, pp. 205-260. 

^Education in Religion and Morals. Coe, pp. 22, 37-39, 60-63, 
195, 208. 

*In Aid of Faith. Abbott, pp. 31-51. ($1.00.) 

Man's Value to Society. Hillis, Chapter VII. 

Christian Nurture. Horace Bushnell. ($1.25.) 

The Work of a Boys' Department. Coe, pp. 12-25. (20 
cents ) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Of the three elements, body, mind and soul, which make 
up a responsible human being, two only have been hitherto 
treated as fit subjects for scientific inquiry. From six thou- 
sand years of contemplation of the phenomena of human life 
and thought, only two sciences have emerged. Physiology 



THE SPIRITUAL NATURE 77 

has told us all that is possible of the human body: Psychology, 
of the mind. But the half is not accounted for. We wish, 
further, a spiritual psychology to tell us of the unseen real- 
ities of the soul. The New Evangelism. Drummond, p. 261. 

When I ask myself what is the real basis of my religious 
belief in God, in immortality, in Christ, in the Bible, I find 
that basis is my own consciousness, receiving and responding 
to the invisible truth: and when I begin to ask what is the real 
basis of that belief in the great body of Christians, most of 
whom have neither the education, the time nor the books for 
independent philosophical investigation, I see that this same 
inward witness is the one which attests to them the truth, 
which they are often, for that reason, puzzled to attest to 
others. A French deist argues with a Christian friend at con- 
siderable length against immortality. The friend replies in a 
sentence: "Probably you are right. I presume you are not 
immortal; but I AM." In Aid of Faith. Abbott, pp. 36-37. 

The whole work of education consists in helping the de- 
velopment of what is already there. The basal assumption 
of education in religion is that the child has a religious 
nature, and that this nature is not a mere empty capacity 
waiting to be filled, but rather a positive impulse, trend or 
law. Instead of saying that a person must be converted to 
God in order to be religious, we may say that he must be 
converted from God to evil before he can be irreligious. Hib- 
bard boldly took this position, agreeing with Bushnell that 
"the child is to grow up a Christian and never know him- 
self as being otherwise." In the mind of Froebel, the chief 
founder of the kindergarten, the religious conception of man 
was, in fact, fundamental and all pervasive. "Every child," 
he said, "in right of its soul, is to be received as something 
divine appearing in human form as a pledge of God's grace, a 
gift of God." The special destination of man he conceives to 
be "to become fully and clearly conscious of his own essence, 
the divine that is in him, and to make it manifest in his own 
life." The divine in man, which is his essence, is to be un- 
folded and brought to his consciousness by means of education. 
Education, therefore, has to raise the human being to a knowl- 
edge of himself and of humanity; to a knowledge of God and 
of nature, and to the pure and holy life which follows from 
this knowledge. This coming to religious self-consciousness 
will involve something that may be called a decision. It is 
more or less deliberate counting of oneself a Christian. But 
this kind of decision must not be confounded with the de- 
cision of a rebel when he lays down arms. It is a ratification 
rather than a reversal. The Work of a Boys* Department. 
Coe, pp. 20-23. 

The doctrine of a new birth was never given prominence 
in any apostolic appeal to the unconverted. Our Lord did 
not preach it to the common people. His only mention of 
it was made in a talk by night with a theological professor 
on the philosophy of salvation. It has been sadly perverted 



78 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES. 

by being thrust in the face of young children, or of older 
unrepentant sinners, as if it were something which limited 
their personal duty or barred their privileges. It has been 
made a barrier and a stumbling-block to those who would 
enter the service of Christ. Conversion has been given a 
place in the plan of salvation which only Christ should oc- 
cupy. And the eyes of loving little ones, or of longing peni- 
tents, have been directed away from the living Saviour to 
a single fact in God's process of redemption. Teaching and 
Teachers, Trumbull, pp, 344-345, 



REVIEW 79 



XII. REVIEW 

This review, coming midway in the course, should be a 
written one, and the rules of an ordinary examination 
should be observed in its conduct. The students should 
write the answers to the questions on uniform paper, and 
without the use of books or conference with other members 
of the class. Fifteen questions are given. Only ten ques- 
tions should be answered, the student making his own choice 
from the fifteen, and no credit should be given for answers 
to more than the first ten questions chosen by the student. 
The teacher should mark the answer to each question on a 
scale of ten, and a total of 75 on ten questions should be 
considered sufficient to pass. It will be found that this 
form of review will be an excellent preparation for the 
more formal examination at the close of the course. 

1. What is teaching ? 

2. What four relations does the teacher bear to the 
student ? 

3. Why should the Bible class teacher have a knowledge 
of the principles of teaching ? 

4. Designate an ordinary effect of the body on the mind, 
of the mind on the body, and of the spirit on the body, with 
scriptural references. 

5. Name some of the characteristics of boys between 
twelve and sixteen, and indicate how religious instruction 
should be directed to suit these characteristics. 

6. What three powers has the mind ? 

7. What is attention ? 



80 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

8. What is the distinction between sensation and per- 
ception? 

9. What is meant by apperception? 

10. What principles should be observed in requiring chil- 
dren to memorize portions of Scripture ? 

11. How may imagination help in Bible study? 

12. Why should the feelings not be repressed ? 

13. What is the will? 

14. What considerations make the formation of good 
habits important? 

15. What does the right view of education suggest as to 
the decision of the normal boy to become a Christian? 



PART THREE 



THE LESSON: THE TEACHER'S APPROACH TO 
THE STUDENT 



ADAPTATION 83 



XIII. ADAPTATION 

1. The teacher should adapt himself to the language of 
the student. The meaning of words is notoriously illusive. 
The word that conveys one signification to this man may 
convey an entirely different signification to that man. The 
teacher and the student may see the same word in totally 
different lights, and thereupon may hang the failure of an 
entire lesson. Henry Clay Trumbull tells of an intelligent 
Sunday-school teacher who proceeded on the assumption 
that the members of the class understood the meaning of the 
"passion" as applied to the sufferings of Christ, and whose 
method of teaching was revolutionized by the discovery that 
they had no conception of the word. The teacher should 
study the vocabulary of his student. This may be done 
by inducing the student to express himself, and carefully 
observing his choice of words. It has been said that of the 
one hundred thousand words in the English language, few 
men understand more than twenty thousand, and the vocab- 
ulary of a child of ten rarely contains more than fifteen 
hundred. The folly of taking for granted that the student 
understands the language of the lesson at every point, there- 
fore, is very apparent. Gregory well says that "not what 
the speaker expresses from his own mind, but what the 
hearer understands and reproduces in his own mind, meas- 
ures the exact communicating power of the language used." 
It is of little consequence that the teacher may be fluent 
in speech and is able to express himself in a wealth of lan- 
guage if the student fails to understand the meaning of 
the words used ; for, it must be again recalled, that teaching 



84 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

implies the self -activity of the student and unless the spark 
of intelligence is struck in the mind of the student, no 
fires of activity will be kindled. 

The lesson is effective to just the extent of the student's 
appreciation of the language which serves as the vehicle 
of the thought. All this has a special application to the 
language of the Bible. It must be borne in mind that much 
of the scriptural language is archaic and that the mean- 
ing of many of its words was acquired by the teacher after 
careful instruction or long experience. The learner's lack 
of such instruction and experience must be borne in mind. 
Mr. Trumbull quotes the effort of Mark Twain's new min- 
ister and a rough Nevada miner, who wanted to arrange 
for funeral services over a dead comrade, to make them- 
selves understood to each other, as an illustration of the 
necessity of a common basis of language between the teacher 
and the student. It should be noted also that the lan- 
guage of the Bible is very often the language of the spiritual 
realm, and care should be exercised in interpreting this 
language to the learner in the terms of his own experience. 
The stock phrases which are frequently used by Christian 
people in speaking of their spiritual experiences sometimes 
stand in the way of the acceptance of the truth by those 
whom they are trying to interest or influence. 

2. The teacher should adapt himself to the knowledge 
and experience of the student. The adaptation should be in 
matter as well as in method. The mere simplifying of lan- 
guage will not necessarily bring the instruction within the 
range of the student. The boy is not a diminutive adult, 
and the cutting down of his father's suit will not be ac- 
ceptable to him ; he must have one made for himself. The* 
boy or youth will not tolerate anything like condescension 
in the use of language towards him, and the great danger 
is not so much that the language of the teacher will not 
he intelligible to him as that the subject-matter itself shall 



ADAPTATION 85 

not touch the plane of his experience. Neither will the 
diminution of the amount of instruction on a given sub- 
ject meet the requirements of the case. Here, too, the 
adaptation must be in quality as well as in quantity. White 
says that forty years ago elementary text-books in the 
schools were prepared "on the basis of the theory that 
primary pupils may be taught the same kinds of knowledge 
as the pupils in the higher grades, and by essentially the 
same methods, the only radical difference between the pri- 
mary and advanced instruction being in the amount of the 
knowledge taught, the former covering daily less ground 
than the latter. The only essential difference between the 
elementary and higher books in all branches was the fact 
that the former were thinner than the latter." 

Our biblical instruction has not yet freed itself from 
this conception of adaptation and it is still thought by 
many, even by those who are in sympathy with graded sys- 
tems of instruction, that the subject-matter of the Bible 
may be adapted to younger students either by simplification 
of the language or the amount of material covered. It is 
doubtless on this account that older boys are so frequently 
found to be acceptable leaders of younger boys in their 
Bible study. The older boy is nearer than the adult to the 
younger boy in the plane of his experience, in his con- 
ceptions of life and truth, and in his use of language. He 
does not take for granted, as the adult does, the existence 
of knowledge which has not yet come to the boy. Prof. 
Payne, an eminent English teacher, has said, in recognition 
of this truth : "A man profoundly acquainted with a sub- 
ject may be unapt to teach it by reason of the very height 
and extent of his knowledge. His mind habitually dwells 
among the mountains, and he has therefore small sympathy 
with the toilsome plodders on the plain below." Adaptation 
does not imply that great truths may not or should not be 
taught to younger students, but that they must be brought 



36 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES. 

to the student at the point of his own knowledge and ex- 
perience to which they appropriately belong. He must be 
led by easy stages from the known to the unknown. 

This brings us again to the subject of apperception, to 
which we have already given some consideration, and which 
we found to be "a spontaneous act of the mind in imme- 
diately seeking something in its store of ideas with which 
to classify a new idea; the translation and interpretation 
of the new in terms of the known." So far as this act is 
one of classification on the part of the student, it might 
well be considered under our next topic, "Method or Sys- 
tem." So far as the utilization of the principle by the 
teacher is concerned, it should be considered under the head 
of Adaptation. "It is easy to add to what is already dis- 
covered," says Pestalozzi, "and no wise teacher endeavors 
to commence instruction in a new subject before finding 
something in the mind of the student, be he boy or adult, 
into which the new may be grafted." To no subject of in- 
struction does this apply more forcibly than to religious 
truth. Here, as Bailey well says, "our teaching must be 
correlated with the life of the pupil. What does the child 
care about the revolt of the ten tribes, or the repairing 
of the temple, or the woes upon the Pharisees ? Primarily, 
nothing. These topics are as foreign to his thought as the 
problem of evil or the law of the correlation of forces. His 
only possible interest must come through association. If he 
has revolted from authority at home or at school, if the 
meeting-house in his village has been extensively repaired 
within his memory, a wise teacher may be able to excite his 
interest in similar experiences of people long ago. The boy 
may be led from his own quarrel with his companions as to 
who should be president of the boys' club, to that of the 
disciples as to who should be first in the kingdom of God; 
and from the effects of wild companions upon himself to the 
effects of similar companions upon Eehoboam, the son of 



ADAPTATION 87 

Solomon." Jesus made frequent use of this principle. At- 
tention has been called to the fact that strangely enough 
He did not make use of illustrations drawn from His own 
work as a carpenter, but from the more common experience 
of His auditors with nature, or as fishermen, or in the ordi- 
nary round of household duties. Paul, too, observed the 
same principle in opening his address to the Athenians 
when he said, "I perceive that in all things ye are very 
religious." 

3. The teacher should adapt himself to the needs of the 
student. We must remind ourselves again that a mere 
intellectual study of the Bible can have no desirable re- 
sult. As a book intended primarily for the development of 
the spiritual life any other treatment of it is abnormal. 
Those who engage in Bible study for any other purpose 
may be likened to those "who are always learning and never 
coming to a knowledge of the truth." An observance of the 
principle of adaptation will serve us here also. The in- 
culcation of spiritual principles and moral duties should 
be based on such acquaintance in these directions as the 
student has made already. The application, however, need 
not be made in a set way at the conclusion of the lesson. 
Indeed, it should not be always so made, to be most effica- 
cious. The instruction which attaches itself with hooks 
of steel to the present experience and attainments of the 
student will make its own application. Miss Blow notes 
that the mind of the child may be trusted to do its own 
universalizing, and Patterson DuBois says, "Our moral tags 
or applications are the ruin of many of our Bible and other 
stories for children," and we might add that they are often- 
times the ruin of our Bible instruction for older students 
as well. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

*The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 49-80. 

*Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 54-62. 

*The Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, pp. 21-45. 



88 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 79-91. 
Education in Religion and Morals. Coe, pp. 107-109, 174-175. 
($1.35.) 
Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 100-104. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Our working rule should be to use as simple language as we 
can without straining, that is without unnaturalness, and to 
explain no words except those representing ideas that really 
form part of the actual lesson. But we do not require to ex- 
plain the exact meaning of ox, or ass, or manservant. If the 
pupil does not understand an expression, no great harm is 
done. It is only a matter of postponing a bit of knowledge. 
But if a wrong meaning is conveyed harm has been done. 
Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 59-60. 

Find what your pupil knows of the subject you wish to 
teach — not of some text-book, but of the facts and elements of 
the subject. This is his starting-point. Make the most of 
the pupil's knowledge. Let him feel its extent and value as a 
means of learning more. Lead him to clear up and freshen his 
knowledge by attempting a clear statement of it. This will 
bring him to the border of the unknown. The Seven Laws of 
Teaching. Gregory, p. 76. 

Modern method recognizes the fact that the individual mind 
in its development repeats the order of development of the 
race mind. Mankind, in its progress from a rude and savage 
state, passes through three broadly marked "culture epochs." 
In the childhood of the race, myths and legends, accounts of 
demigods and heroes, abound. All objects in nature are en- 
dowed with personality, and natural phenomena are explained 
as the acts of gods or demons. As the race advances, imagina- 
tion and superstition are modified by close observation and in- 
creasing experience, a beginning is made in empirical science, 
and the practical arts are established. As progress continues, 
pure science takes the place of empiricism, and the search 
for the relations and causes of things gives rise to philosophy 
and speculative investigation. Civilized man passes through 
these three stages of mind growth in his individual life, and 
the processes of his education should be in accord with them. 
For the child there should be fairy stories, fables, the per- 
sonification of natural forces, and true biography of the world's 
heroes. For the youth there must be much observing and 
experimenting, trial of many things and accumulation of facts 
in every field of knowledge. For the man there must be in- 
vestigation and inquiry into ultimate causes — the why and how 
of things. A little reflection will show that all that has been 
said so far regarding method can be summed up in the one 
principle: The processes of education should conform to the 
order of mind growth. Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 
276-277. 

In most cases some sort of preparation is necessary. This 
may take the form of the arousing of curiosity regarding that 



ADAPTATION go, 

which is to be presented, or of a demand for the solution 
of a problem. It may be accomplished through establishing 
emotional or intellectual congruity; by arousing feelings akin 
to the tone of the story, or by calling to remembrance kindred 
facts or ideas, and stationing them at the threshold as a kind 
of reception committee — for it is the "law of the mental jun- 
gle" that only on the introduction of someone already in can 
entrance be granted to him who is without. I should say 
that the teacher should aim to make the preparation indirect 
rather than direct, informal rather than formal and as brief 
as possible. Principles of Religious Education. Walter L. Her- 
vey, p. 152. 

But there is a still higher and more fruitful stage in learn- 
ing. It is found in the study of the uses and applications of 
knowledge. No lesson is learned to its full and rich ending 
till it is traced to its connections with the great working 
machinery of nature and of life. Nature is not an idle show, 
nor is the Bible a mass of old wives' fables. Every fact has 
its uses, and every truth its application, and till these are 
found the lesson lies idle and useless as a wheel out of gear 
with its fellows in the busy machinery. The practical rela- 
tions of truth, and the forces which lie hid behind all facts, 
are never really understood till we apply our knowledge to 
some of the practical purposes of life and thought. The boy 
who finds a use for his lesson becomes doubly interested and 
successful in his studies. What was idle knowledge, only 
half understood, becomes practical wisdom full of zest and 
power. Especially is this true of Bible knowledge, whose 
superficial study is of slight effect, but whose profounder learn- 
ing changes the whole man. "The letter killeth; the spirit 
giveth life." The Seven Loans of Teaching, QvQSQiy, PP, 109-110. 



90 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 



XIV. METHOD 

"A teacher/' says Roark, "must know the three M's, 
Matter, Mind and Method," and adds, "A teacher with 
good method and limited knowledge will do far better 
work than one with full knowledge and poor method : with- 
out method he is not a teacher at all, no matter how much 
subject-matter he knows." 

We have been discussing the teaching of the lesson with 
reference to the preparation of the student to receive it 
by reason of what he already has in his possession. We are 
now to discuss : 

1. The teaching of a truth with reference to other truths, 
with which it may be connected, whether already in the pos- 
session of the student or still to be acquired by him. Each 
lesson may be compared to a building "fitly joined to- 
gether," in which each material of construction has its 
appropriate place, and in which if any material is improp- 
erly placed the whole structure is affected. There is an 
orderly arrangement of the materials of the lesson by which 
one step suggests the next step, just as certainly as the laid 
foundations of the building suggest the superstructure. In 
taking this step we proceed in accordance with the laws 
of association. The fact that in teaching we are dealing 
with spiritual truths, while in building we handle material 
things, in nowise lessens, but rather emphasizes the im- 
portance of proceeding with a due regard to method. Half 
truths, isolated facts, detached scriptural texts, have been 
the bane of the Christian church. It is due to the failure 
of systematic comparison of truth with truth that the Scrip- 



METHOD 91 

tures have been quoted in support of erratic views and even 
of immoral positions. What is true of the individual lesson 
is also true of the entire series of lessons in which the 
student may be engaged. " 'Sufficient unto the day is the 
lesson thereof is a motto that is subversive of all true 
teaching," says the author of the Primer on Teaching. To 
illustrate from the series that we are now following, we 
saw how closely our last topic of Adaptation was connected 
with Apperception. We found that imagination could only 
be considered intelligently in the light of memory, and that 
attention was best discussed in connection with interest. 
A further glance at the three main parts which go to make 
up this series shows that we first discussed, The Teacher: 
His Work, Qualifications and Preparation; next, The Stu- 
dent: His Physical, Mental and Spiritual Nature; and that 
we are now considering The Lesson: The Teacher's Ap- 
proach to the Student. The underlying connection of each 
series of lessons undertaken by the student should in this 
clear and comprehensive fashion be brought home to him. 
2. Inductive and deductive methods of study. Induction 
is a conclusion from a number of observed facts or princi- 
ples. Deduction is proceeding from known facts or prin- 
ciples to results. Or to use the definitions of the dictionary, 
induction is an ascent from particulars to generals ; deduc- 
tion is a descent from generals to particulars. To illus- 
trate: we have noted that the pendulum of a clock grows 
longer in warm weather causing the clock to run slower. 
The railroad tracks lengthen in warm weather filling up the 
spaces between the ends which are left in the laying for 
this purpose. A metal ball which will just pass through a 
ring when it is cool, if heated will be found to be too large 
to go through the ring. Here are three ordinary facts 
which taken together, and in conjunction with a large 
number of similar facts, indicate that heat expands metals. 
This may be regarded then as an induction from a number; 



92 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

of observed facts. The apple falling from the tree, the book 
from the hand, the man from the building, are observed 
facts which with others of the same kind point to the law 
of gravity. This, too, was discovered inductively. Deduc- 
tion, on the other hand, is the laying down of a principle 
or a hypothesis and an investigation for facts that will prove 
this principle or hypothesis. The inductive or experimental 
method is now generally adopted in the scientific world. 
Applying this principle to the study of the Bible, we have 
what is sometimes known as "Inductive Bible Study." The 
study of the Bible in the past has been too largely deduc- 
tive. People have come to the Bible with preconceived no- 
tions looking for statements to confirm those notions. They 
have laid down theological propositions and then have gone 
to the Bible for "proof-texts," with which to demonstrate 
those propositions. The inductive method of Bible study 
leads one to read the various sections of which it is made 
up with a purpose to learn what the writers said and what 
they had in mind when they said it. One of the important 
principles of this method of study is that the text must be 
studied first and the conclusions must be drawn last. As we 
shall have occasion to note in our study of the Lesson Study 
and Teaching Plan, in coming to the Bible we are to take 
up the text first. This will be accompanied by a study of 
individual words and topics, this followed by classification, 
and last of all will come the teaching or application of 
the lesson to the individual life. 

3. The right order of teaching. Phillips Brooks once ad- 
vised theological students to try to interest their auditors in 
a subject in the same way in which they first became in- 
terested in it. This has teen called "the order of discov- 
ery," the order in which the human race first learned these 
facts and truths. That which is first in the order of logic 
may not always be first in the order of teaching. Patterson 
DuBois, in commenting upon a discussion of the manner 



METHOD 93 

of teaching botany to children, quotes from a writer in the 
Popular Science Monthly as follows: "Dr. Jacobi would 
use the flower, in beginning to teach children botany, be- 
cause it is the most attractive, makes the largest impression 
upon the senses, is easy of apprehension, and leads to the 
appreciation of specific differences. . . Miss Youmans 
would begin with the leaf, on the assumption that it is 
simpler than the flower, and, in tracing its scientific rela- 
tions, deeper intellectual pleasure is received. . . Begin- 
ning with roots, as so many systematic teachers have done, 
and following with stem, leaves, flowers, and ending with 
fruits as the ultimate work of the plant, although logical 
to adults, full of regular sequences, and scientific from 
one standpoint, is unscientific from another." Mr. DuBois 
also quotes a writer in the Sunday-school Times who tells 
of the experience of a high-school girl who tried to interest 
her brother in geology beginning with the story of how the 
earth was made, while he was anxious to begin by being 
told how the sidewalks were made. The logical order of 
teaching would call for instruction in the alphabet and the 
spelling of words before learning to read. To-day, however, 
the beginner is taught to read first after which the letters 
and words have an interest and relation which they could 
not have had before. It follows from what has been said 
that religious instruction can best be inculcated by follow- 
ing the order of discovery, the point of contact with experi- 
ence, and not at first by a logical arrangement of spiritual 
truths. This is the order of life rather than logic. This 
is the method of the Bible. Jesus formulated no system o 
theology. As the student learns the flower before he studie.. 
botany, the stars before astronomy, the minerals before 
mineralogy, so he should be brought into contact with re- 
ligious truth on the plane of his own experience before 
giving attention to the arrangement of truths in logical 
order, 



94 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

4. Teaching maxims. The following maxims may serve 
to summarize some of the suggestions that have been offered 
under Adaptation and Method. These have been gathered 
from a number of authors noted in the References for 
Reading, and have special application to elementary 
teaching : 

Observation before reasoning. 
The concrete before the abstract. 
Facts before principles. 
Processes before rules. 
Particulars before generals. 
The simple before the complex. 
The known before the unknown. 
Things before names. 
The present before the remote. 
Activity before reflection. 
Sensation before introspection. 
The direct before the circuitous. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

*The Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, pp. 49-81. 
Psychology in Education. Roark, pp. 265-283. 
Teacher's Hand-Book of Psychology. Sully, pp. 402-405. 
Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory. PP. 15-27. 
*Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 62-90. 
Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 70-80, 138-139. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

A great mass of unconnected facts is of little value. What 
is important for us is not the number of facts we collect, but 
the number we can use because we have discovered the rela- 
tion in which they stand to each other. Primer on Teaching. 
Adams, pp. 62-63. 

Mr. James Newton Baskett wrote: "Recently I attempted 
to describe the oven-bird to a country boy who, I knew, haa 
often seen it, but did not know it. I went through plumage, 
size, song, nest, etc., but the case looked hopeless. At last 
I mentioned the habit of alighting near the limb and running 
out toward its tip. His face brightened. 'Is he a kind of high 
stepper?' he asked, picking up his feet exactly as the bird does. 
In this way the boy has become a helpful observer — learning 
how to observe. His descriptions are so accurate that I often 
diagnose birds from them before he is through. He had a new 
interest in his farm work. He could never have got it from 
systematic ornithology." No more can the child get his inter- 
est in religious truths through systematic theology, catechisms, 
or other adult forms of conventionalized and abstract thought, 



METHOD 95 

or images based on material things with which the child has 
never come into sense contact The Point of Contact in Teach- 
ing. DuBois, pp. 66-67. 

In commenting on the course in physical geography in Pesta- 
lozzi's school Froebel says : "Particularly unpleasant to me was 
the commencement of the course which began with an ac- 
count of the bottom of the sea, although the pupils could 
have no conception of their own as to its nature or dimen- 
sions." The Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, p. 69. 

It is of no use to start with an abstract statement, motto 
text or doctrine of any kind. Everyone must do his own 
abstracting. Out of the concrete, objective experiences of life 
only can we deduce or generalize our abstractions of knowl- 
edge. The Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, p. 6. 

The first fact which the teacher needs to get firmly in mind, 
and to keep aware of in all his teaching, is that the logical 
order of development of a subject is not always, not even 
often, the psychological order. The beginner must be taught 
to read before he knows the alphabet or can spell: short sen- 
tences and words mean something to children, letters do not. 
Yet a logical method would require the letters to be first 
learned, their combination into words next, and last of all 
the building of words into sentences. To teach arithmetic 
logically would be to begin with the abstract ideas of unity 
and number, and from these to unfold all number relations 
and processes. To teach arithmetic psychologically is to begin 
with concrete things, and show how a number of objects may 
be increased and diminished. Psychology in Education. Roark, 
pp. 268-269. 

Deduction passes from the general to the particular; in- 
duction from the particular to the general. Deduction states 
the rule and then seeks or supplies examples; induc- 
tion supplies examples and then seeks the rule. Now in teach- 
ing there is room for both; each in its own place. As a rule, 
the Sunday-school teacher is prone to use the Deductive Method 
only. His lesson too often consists in merely telling the pupil 
certain things, and then illustrating by stories and other 
examples. Primer on Teaching, Adams, p. 66. 



96 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 



XV. REVIEWS 

1. The elements of a review. Three progressive steps are 
involved in the reviewing of a lesson : a repetition of it, a 
second view or viewing again of it, and a new view of it. 
The repetition of it may be, to a certain extent, mechanical. 
The second view of it, or a viewing again of it, may com- 
prehend simply those elements which were recognized in 
the first view or original learning of the lesson. This is 
valuable. The new view of it, however, seeing it in new 
aspects and relations, is by far the most important phase 
of reviewing. 

2. The importance of reviews. Comparatively few -un- 
trained teachers appreciate the importance of reviews. With 
some this is simply the result of neglect or thoughtlessness ; 
with others, the positive feeling that time spent on reviews 
is time largely lost. Trumbull says, "The schools of the 
Jesuits, as perfected under Aquaviva three centuries ago, 
were quite in advance of anything the world has yet known 
in the educational line; and their power and effectiveness 
were such as to stay, in large measure, the progress of the 
Protestant Eeformation in Europe. The methods of those 
schools are still worthy of imitation at many points. In 
their system of teaching, review, as a means of fastening 
the truth taught, was given a large prominence." On this 
point Eobert Herbert Quick says : "One of the maxims of 
this system was, 'Kepetition is the mother of studies/ Every 
lesson was connected with two repetitions: one, before it 
began, of preceding work, and the other, at the close, of the 
work just done. Besides this, one day a week was devoted 
entirely to repetition." A teacher's appreciation of the 



REVIEWS 97 

importance of the review will be measured to some extent 
by the time he spends upon it in the class sessions. Gregory 
says that the best teachers give about one-third of each 
lesson hour to reviews. Another has said that if one-half 
the teaching time were thus to be spent there would be a 
gain. Hughes urges : "We must repeat and review, and re- 
view and repeat until it seems absurd to repeat any longer, 
and then experience will show us the necessity for repeating 
and reviewing again." 
3. Objects of the review : 

(1) The first object of the review is to fix the lesson in 
the mind. "We have seen in discussing the subject of 
Memory how necessary repetition is to retention. Even the 
most familiar knowledge may apparently pass out of the 
mind unless it is refreshed by repetition. Trumbull tells 
us that Dr. Yung Wing, the Chinese student, who had his 
second education in America, after his graduation from 
Yale College, when he returned to his native land found 
himself under the necessity of learning the Chinese lan- 
guage over again because it had not been reviewed by him 
in the years of his absence from China. 

(2) Reviews test the knowledge of the student and show 
what he has learned and what he has failed to learn in a 
lesson or a series of lessons. There is no other way of 
accomplishing this result except by reviews. We have seen 
in discussing the subject of Adaptation that not what the 
teacher says but what the student comprehends measures 
the value of a lesson to him. So it is not what the student 
learns but what he remembers that measures the value of a 
lesson to him. As Gregory says, "Not what a man gains 
but what he keeps constitutes his wealth." 

(3) Reviews afford a new view of a lesson or series of 
lessons. The first contact with a lesson may bring out only 
one aspect of the truth, one relation to the life of the 
student. A new view may add important knowledge of 



98 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

other aspects and relations of the subject. This is espe- 
cially true of the study of the Bible. No book repays more 
amply for reviewing than the Bible. Its truths are so many- 
sided and so profound that not the first nor the second nor 
the third survey reveals them in all their aspects and rela- 
tions to life. How often the preaching of a second sermon 
from the same text will bring to the mind suggestions and 
inspirations that were entirely absent from the first. 

(4) The review of a lesson or series of lessons oftentimes 
reveals the orderly progression of events or truths, and 
enables the student to trace their relationship without the 
confusion of details which sometimes comes with the first 
study of a lesson. The review in this particular is like 
standing on an eminence from which the principal features 
in the landscape may be seen emerging more clearly and 
definitely from the less prominent objects. 

(5) Reviews test the teacher's work. This constitutes 
not the least value of reviews. The methods of many a 
teacher have been revolutionized, as we have seen, by the 
discovery through a review that the work of the class- 
room had failed to penetrate the mind of the student. The 
earlier this discovery is made in a course of study the 
better. Hence the importance of commencing reviews early 
in a series. 

(6) Reviews awaken interest and attention. The new 
aspects of the truth that are brought out, the facility in 
handling the truth of a lesson, that comes only with its 
perfect acquisition through repetition, give zest to the 
further prosecution of a lesson or series of lessons by the 
student and keep him constantly alive to their possibilities. 

4. The conduct of reviews : 

( 1 ) Reviews are in order : before each lesson in a survey 
of the previous lesson; in the middle of each lesson; at 
the close of each lesson ; at the close of a series of lessons } 
at the end of a month or a quarter or a year. 



REVIEWS 99 

(2) The review is pre-eminently the student's exercise. 
Here above all other places the lesson should not degenerate 
into a lecture by the teacher. 

(3) The reviews should be prepared by the teacher and 
student as carefully as the original lesson. 

(4) No attempt should be made in the review to cover 
all the ground covered in the original lesson. Emphasis 
should be laid on those facts or teachings which are along 
the main trend of the lesson or series. Special attention 
should be given in the review to those portions which the 
teacher has had the greatest desire to have the members 
of the class appreciate in the original lesson. 

(5) Emphasis should be laid in the review on applica- 
tions of the lessons to the life of the student rather than 
on illustrations or further development of truths. Note the 
use of this principle by Jesus and Paul — John 21:15-17; 
Phil. 3 :1, and 4 :4, 5. 

(6) A selection of the truths of lessons to be emphasized 
in review will be brought more clearly to the mind by the 
use of the blackboard. Care should be exercised, however, 
not to allow ingenious designs to overshadow the truths to 
be conveyed. 

(7) Brief and spirited drills of the members of the class 
on phases of the lesson, important texts and teachings, are 
always in order, and are important applications of the rule 
of repetition. 

5. Previews. A preview is a view beforehand of a lesson 
or series of lessons for the purpose of getting a bird's-eye 
view of the course to be covered and the ends to be ac- 
complished. It is quite as important in starting out on a 
lesson that the teacher should know where he is going and 
what he is aiming at as it is to review the ground which 
he has covered at the completion of the course. 

The value of a preview is found: (1) In helping the 
mind to establish the relation between the lessons of a series, 

LofC. 



100 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

or, as in the case of a single lesson, in the selection of 
the more important phases of the truth to be emphasized. 
(2) In helping the memory to retain the truths inculcated 
by reason of the association which is traced among them 
through the preview. 

6. Examinations. Examinations are a form of review 
having special reference to the testing of the student as to 
what he has learned or failed to learn in a series of lessons. 
Some prejudice has existed against the conduct of written 
examinations in connection with Bible study courses, but, 
as Trumbull has said, "Bible knowledge is to be secured 
through the same mental processes as any other knowledge, 
and the testing of the knowledge gained by a scholar in the 
study of the Bible must be by the same method as his 
testing in any other department of knowledge." There 
seems to be no good and sufficient reason why written exam- 
inations at the close or during the progress of Bible study 
courses, should not be conducted with the same adherence 
to rigid standards as is observed in the conduct of exam- 
inations in any other department of study. This is espe- 
cially true of courses of study that aim at a systematic and 
thorough instruction in Bible knowledge. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

*Teaehing and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 199-235. 

*The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 118-134. 

How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 69-74. 

The Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 147-148, 193-209. 

Sunday-school Teachers' Normal Course. Pease, Vol. 2, pp. 

4-167. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

The true measure of your scholar's knowledge on any sub- 
ject of study, is not what you have declared to him, not what 
he seemed to understand of your teaching, but what he can 
restate to you in his own language as you and he go over 
it again together. It is a very common thing for us to say, 
when we are asked about one thing or another — about some- 
thing that we have often had in our minds — that we know all 
about it, but cannot express our knowledge in words. As a- 
rule, this is not a true statement of the case. If we have 
definite knowledge on a given subject of inquiry, we can ex- 



REVIEWS 101 

press that knowledge in words; and just to the extent of our 
inability to express ourselves are we lacking in definiteness of 
knowledge. The truth is, that we have a good many vague 
ideas on many a subject, which we confound with real knowl- 
edge of that subject. And so it is with our scholars. Teach- 
ing and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 208-209. 

Not what a man gains, but what he keeps, constitutes his 
wealth. So in learning it is not the lesson learned, but the 
knowledge that we retain, which makes us wise and intelli- 
gent. How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, p. 69. 

Our images tend to grow, in distinctness, completeness, and 
in readiness to appear, with the number of repetitions of the 
sense presentations. Where the repetition of the presentation 
itself is impossible, the renewed reproduction of it may serve, 
even though less effectually, to bring about the same result. 
Thus by recalling in talk with a friend some experience in 
which we have shared, the memory-images are kept alive. Re- 
peating verses inaudibly helps to some extent to preserve the 
memory of them. It is hardly necessary to emphasize the 
point that in training the memory a judicious use should be 
made of the principle of repetition. Such repetition enters 
into the very process of giving instruction. Thus when a 
teacher after each step in an oral lesson writes down the 
points reached on the blackboard, he introduces a new sense- 
vehicle, the eye, and so tends to fix the subject by a form of 
repetition which avoids monotony, and introduces a new link 
of association. Repetition may also be secured by the even- 
ing work, writing out notes, and what should go with this, 
a talk about the lesson with an intelligent parent. In all 
these ways the value of repetition is realized without its 
monotony. The Teachers* Hand-Book of Psychology. Sully, pp. 
215 and 254. 

A review is something more than a repetition. A machine 
may repeat a process, but only an intelligent agent can re- 
view it. The repetition done by a machine is a second move- 
ment precisely like the first; a repetition by the mind is the 
rethinking of a thought. It is necessarily a review. It is 
more: it involves fresh conceptions and new associations, 
and brings an increase of facility and power. The Seven Laws 
of Teaching. Gregory, p. 119. 

When we enter a strange house we know not where to look 
for its several rooms, and the attention is drawn to a few of 
the more singular and conspicuous features of furniture. We 
must return again and again, and resurvey the scene with 
eyes grown familiar to the place and to the light, before the 
whole plan of the building and the uses of all the rooms with 
their furniture will stand clearly revealed. So one must re- 
turn again and again to a lesson if he would see all there is in 
it, and come to a true and vivid understanding of its meaning. 
We have all noticed how much we find that is new and inter- 
esting in reading again some old and familiar volume. The 
Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 120-121. 



102 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



XVI. THE ART OF QUESTIONING 

1. Methods of instruction. Of the methods of conduct- 
ing the lesson in the classroom there are four that should 
have special attention. They may be designated roughly 
as the lecture, the seminar, the recitation or topic, and the 
question or conversational method. 

(1) The lecture method. By this method the teacher 
proceeds with an orderly and, for the most part, uninter- 
rupted presentation of the thought of the lesson. This 
method calls for little or no preparation in advance by the 
student. Some of the advantages of the lecture method of 
teaching are: 

That it enables the teacher to present in somewhat satis- 
factory form the result of his own investigations of the 
subject and permits him to make evident the connection in 
the line of thought he is following. 

That it allows for the play of his own personality. 

That it enables the teacher to reach a greater number 
of auditors and is therefore best suited to a large class. 

That it gives little opportunity for the members of the 
class who are prepared to precipitate controversial ques- 
tions and half-baked theories on the class. 

That it results in saving of time. 

Each of these advantages, however, should be tested in 
the light of the object to be accomplished in the students. 

Some of the disadvantages of the method are : 

That it permits the attention of the student to wander 
from the subject. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 103 

That it often fails to excite his mental activity. 

That it affords no means to the teacher for learning the 
capacities of the student, or to discover whether he is gain- 
ing knowledge and power from the subjects that are pre- 
sented. 

Whatever may be the adaptation of this method of 
teaching to more mature classes of students, it would 
seem, on the whole, as though by itself it were not suited 
to the instruction of younger students or those of inferior 
mental training. 

(2) The seminar method. By this method the members 
of the class are assigned topics in the line of which they 
make original investigations and report their findings to the 
class instead of being called upon to make recitations from 
specified portions of books. It is almost needless to add 
that this method used exclusively is only suited to more 
mature students and those with trained minds, although 
with older boys and young men it is possible to make such 
original investigation an incidental feature of class work. 

(3) Recitation or topic method. By this method the 
student is expected to prepare stated lessons from a text- 
book and to present what he has learned by topics as they are 
called for by the teacher. The advantages of this method 
are: 

That the student is trained thereby, in the expression of 
thought, if he be stimulated to translate the language of 
the book into his own words. 

That it furnishes the student with a more connected and 
orderly conception of the arrangement of the lesson. 

That, provided the text-book is adequate, the short- 
comings of the teacher are supplemented by the thorough 
and systematic presentation of the subject in the book. 

The disadvantages of this method are : 

That the students are confronted thereby with the temp- 
tation to mechanical and parrot-like presentation of the Ian- 



104 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

guage of the book without any adequate apprehension of its 
meaning. 

That is brings to the teacher a temptation to be listless 
and indifferent, or, in other words, that greater responsi- 
bility is thrown upon the text-book and less on the in- 
structor. 

(4) The question or conversational method. By this 
method, after careful preparation by the teacher and stu- 
dent, the former elicits the knowledge that the student has 
of the subject in as orderly a fashion as possible by a series 
of questions, often resulting in the play of conversation 
between teacher and student. The advantages and disad- 
vantages of this method will be considered in detail be- 
low. Before proceeding to a discussion of these it may 
be said at once that no one method should be employed 
exclusively, but that for the average class of boys and young 
men up to eighteen years of age a wise combination of the 
recitation method with the question method, with an em- 
phasis on the use of questions, seems to be the best. 

2. Advantages of the question method : 

(1) By the question method the interest and attention 
of the student are aroused and his self -activity is stimulated. 
The question method, therefore, conforms to the require- 
ments of the definitions of teaching in our first lesson, and 
especially to the fundamental necessity for attention noted 
in our discussion of that subject. For untrained or im- 
mature minds nothing so quickly stimulates the self -activity 
of the student and quickens and retains his interest and at- 
tention of a well-placed question. Gregory well says : "The 
true stimulant of the human mind is a question, and the 
object or event that does not raise any question will stir 
no thought. Question is not therefore merely one of the 
modes of teaching, it is the whole of teaching; it is the 
excitation of the self -activities to their work of discovering 
truth, learning facts, knowing the unknown." 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 105 

(2) For the same reason the question method helps the 
student to retain knowledge conveyed to him. We have 
seen that interest and attention must precede memory. The 
information, therefore, which is brought to the student at 
the point of a question will more probably be held in mind. 

(3) The question method brings out a variety of thought 
on the subject of the lesson. The class receives thereby not 
simply the thought which it was in the mind of the teacher 
to elicit by his question, but a thought which is sometimes 
even fresher and more vigorous and which would have been 
lost to the class had not a question set in motion.the mental 
activity of some student. 

(4) . The question method seems to be the only method of 
testing adequately the knowledge possessed by the student. 
Nothing can be more deceptive than the apparent attention 
and appreciation of the members of a class who are re- 
ceiving instruction by the lecture method. The expres- 
sion of the face, the eye, the whole attention of the stu- 
dent,, may betoken intelligent .appreciation of the subject, 
but a well-directed question will at once strip off the mask 
and display the lack of knowledge beneath. 

This was the method and this the purpose of Socrates. 
Although one of the greatest teachers that ever lived, he 
did not lecture nor require his students to recite. He sim- 
ply asked them questions. If they were conceited, he asked 
them questions which showed them their ignorance, and put 
them in a frame of mind to learn. If they were sincere in 
their search for truth, he asked them questions which set 
them on their way and helped them to find that for which 
they were looking. The chapter of John Adams, in his 
"Primer on Teaching," on the Socratic method, would re- 
pay a careful reading. 

(5) For the same reason the question method brings the 
teacher into closer contact with the student and reveals 
to him not only what knowledge the student actually pos- 



106 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

sesses, but his methods of thinking and, in some cases, the 
purposes of his life. 

(6) The question method oftentimes arouses the con- 
science. Jesus often used the method with this result. To 
the twelve Jesus said, when many had deserted Him, 
"Would ye also go away ?" which brought a protestation of 
loyalty from Simon Peter (John 6: 66-68). Again, He 
asked which of the three, priest, Levite or Samaritan, 
proved neighbor to the man stripped by the robbers, and on 
receiving the answer said, "Go thou and do likewise" (Luke 
10: 35-37). Of similar import was the question, "What 
shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and 
lose his own life V 

3. Disadvantages of the question method : 

(1) The chief defect of the question method is that 
while it conduces to careful preparation to a larger degree 
than the lecture method, it does not conduce to such prep- 
aration, to as large an extent, as the recitation method. 
This should be guarded by the teacher by a wise combina- 
tion of the recitation and question methods and making sure 
that the questions lead the student over a specified portion 
of a subject which he finds evolved in the text-book. 

(2) The question method does not develop the powers of 
self-expression by the student as does the recitation method. 
Too often the question is answered in incomplete sentences 
and with much less attempt at thoroughness than that which 
characterizes the formal recitation. Here, too, the teacher 
must combine the two methods and supplement the deficien- 
cies of the question method by requiring intelligent and 
thorough statements in reply to his questions. 

(3) It is doubtless more difficult to follow the orderly 
arrangement of the subject when the information is elicited 
by questions. This defect may be remedied to a considera- 
ble extent by the teacher preparing his questions with a due 
regard to the systematic unfolding of the subject, and the 



THE ART OP QUESTIONING 107 

student, by careful preparation in the text of the subject, 
familiarizing himself as though for a recitation with its 
progressive development. 

(See References for Reading at the end of Lesson XVII.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

It is only the unskilful and self-seeking teacher who pre- 
fers to hear his own voice in endless talk, rather than watch 
the working of his pupil's thoughts. The Seven Laws of 
Teaching. Gregory, p. 97. 

The chief and almost constant violation of this law of 
teaching is the attempt to force lessons into pupils' minds 
by simply telling. "I have told you ten times, and yet you 
don't know!" exclaimed a teacher of this sort. Poor teacher, 
can you not remember that knowing comes by thinking, not 
by telling. The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, p. 102. 

The awakening and stirring power of a skilful question 
lies largely in this principle of the shock. It startles the in- 
telligence as with an impinging blow. The ordinary questions 
read from the book, where the pupils have already seen and 
answered them may have their uses, but they lack all power 
to startle and stir the mind. They simply call for the repeti- 
tion of thoughts already studied and known. To produce its 
highest effect, the question must have the element of the un- 
expected in it. The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 
37-38. 

Instruction may be given, indeed, without the use of the 
question; but if one will verify the results of instruction, and 
ascertain precisely the amount and character of his pupils' 
comprehension of a subject, he must resort to the questibn. 
Many teachers, finding it easier for themselves, and perhaps 
more interesting for their pupils, adopt the lecture system, 
and in familiar talks give to their classes whatever they 
wish to communicate. Pleased with the apparent interest and 
attention with which their instructions are received, they 
rashly conclude that they have discovered the true way of 
teaching. A few questions carefully put would speedily unde- 
ceive them, and show them how imperfect and fragmentary the 
conceptions which their pupils have formed. How to Teach 
the Bible. Gregory, pp. 57-58. 

This was the idea of Socrates, who, when he would teach, 
always began his work by asking questions of his scholars, 
in order to open their minds, and to secure their co-work with 
him in the teaching-process; and who insisted that he who 
would be a 'learner must not merely be a listener and a re- 
citer, but must also be "one who searches out for himself." 
Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 94. 

Mr. Gall introduced the plan of a "limited lesson," includ- 
ing a few verses of Scripture to be made the subject of 
simple questioning, with a view to enable the scholar to know 



108 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

what those verses declared, and to express his understanding 
of them in his own words. From this beginning our entire 
modern system of Sunday-school teaching — including all our 
question-books and lesson-helps — took its start. And the 
sound principles on which this method rested ought not to 
be lost sight of, at any stage of our progress. Teaching and 
Teachers. Trumbull, p. 177. 

Lord Bacon said "A wise question is the half of knowledge." 
Art of Questioning. Fitch, p. 56. 

It is only when the questioning spirit has been fully awak- 
ened, and the power and habit of raising questions have been 
largely developed, that the teaching process may give way 
to the lecture plan, and the student may be turned into the 
listener. Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, p. 99. 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 1Q9 



XVII. THE ART OF QUESTIONING (Concluded.) 

1. The preparation of questions. He makes a mistake 
who thinks that the conduct of a class session by the ques- 
tion method is the easiest form of teaching. No method is 
more difficult. We rightly speak of the art of questioning. 
It is an art that is secured only by the most careful study 
and the most patient and persistent practice. Woe be unto 
that teacher who thinks that the question method may be 
used to cover up a lack of careful preparation on his own 
part for the lesson. Even the writing out of questions in 
advance need not be considered too painstaking or methodi- 
cal a preparation of the lesson. Trumbull tells us that "it 
is a matter of history, that when Dr. Chalmers was Profes- 
sor of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrew's University, he had 
a Sunday-school of the poorer class of children in his neigh- 
borhood, and that he was accustomed to write out carefully 
the questions he would ask those children on the Sunday's 
lesson." While the questions should not be read in the class 
session, the very writing of them contributes to exactness 
and to orderly progression on the part of the teacher. The 
teacher will find questions that may have been prepared by 
the authors of the courses he may be following suggestive 
and helpful in preparing his own questions, but should not 
slavishly adopt them for his own use. 

2. Characteristics of effective questions : 

( 1 ) Questions to be effective must be clear, and clearness 
involves simplicity, conciseness and definiteness. All the 
powers of the student should be reserved for the answering 
of the question, and he should not be called upon to spend 



HO THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

time and effort in deciphering the obscure language of a 
question. "Nothing," says Fitch, "discourages and depresses 
a teacher more, or sooner destroys the interest of the chil- 
dren in a lesson, than the asking of questions which they 
cannot answer." But simplicity does not mean that ques- 
tions should be so easy as to call for no thought in answer- 
ing them. Questions may be so easy as to produce ridicule, 
while the question that is most simple in form may call for 
the most profound reply. Among questions that are too 
simple may be instanced those which call only for the an- 
swer Yes or No, or those which have been designated as 
leading questions, i. e., those questions whose form suggests 
the answer to be given. Especially should this be avoided 
on points with which the student is supposed to be familiar. 
For the sake of simplicity the question should be concise, 
and not too long or involved. For a similar reason it should 
be definite. Defmiteness of thought on the part of the 
teacher will produce definiteness in answers. 

(2) Questions to be effective must be arranged in such 
an order as to suggest the progressive and systematic devel- 
opment of the subject and enable the student to see the 
ground which he is covering and, at the close, the end which 
all the time the teacher has had in view. In order that the 
questions may contribute to the purpose of the lesson they 
should be so arranged as to lead to a spiritual result. 

(3) Questions should be suggestive. We should here 
distinguish between questions which are asked for the sake 
of instruction and those which are propounded for the pur- 
pose of testing the student's knowledge. We have already 
uttered a warning against leading questions and those which 
suggest the answer. Nevertheless, questions should be sug- 
gestive of fields of thought to the student and set in motion 
his mental and spiritual activities. The best books are the 
suggestive books. In some cases, indeed, where ground new 
to the student is being covered, the question may neces- 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 111 

sarily suggest the clew to the answer. The author of the 
Primer on Teaching tells us that there was a reason why 
Socrates should have demanded that everything should be 
elicited from the student, because of his belief that all 
knowledge was only a remembering of things that men had 
known in some former existence, but to-day the student 
should not be expected at the point of a question to evolve 
from his inner consciousness knowledge to which he has not 
yet been introduced. Fitch in his Art of Questioning tells 
of an eminent teacher, who used to say of the interrogative 
method, that by it he first questioned the knowledge into 
the minds of the children, and then questioned it out of 
them again. Even questions which are asked in order to 
test the student's knowledge of the subject should contribute 
to the great work of instruction that the teacher has in 
hand. To that end they should be constructive. They 
should not be frivolous, nor on the other hand should they 
be entangling and controversial. 

The teacher should never forget that he is, first of all, a 
teacher, and that his work as examiner is simply to help 
him in his work of teaching. 

3. The putting of questions. The following suggestions, 
though brief, may be profitable in indicating the methods 
of putting questions. These suggestions have to do rather 
with the manner than the matter of the questions. 

(1) Propound the question first and call the name of the 
student who is to answer afterwards. This will insure the 
attention of all because of the uncertainty as to the person 
who is to answer. No intimation should be given to the 
student who is expected to reply even by looking at him 
while the question is being framed. 

(2) Questions should not be asked of members of the 
class in regular rotation, either in alphabetical order or in 
the order of their seating. In order to insure an opportun- 
ity for all to recite, the names of members of the class might 



112 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

be written on slips, shuffled together and then drawn out at 
random. Even this plan should not be followed with too 
great regularity for reasons that will appear in the follow- 
ing suggestion. 

(3) Address questions to the inattentive, but do not 
repeat the question if in their inattention they have not 
heard it. 

(4) Questions should be put with promptness and an- 
imation. Alert questions will stimulate prompt replies. 
While questions should follow one another without delay, 
reasonable time should be given for an intelligent reply. 

(5) Questions should be presented without the use of a 
text-book in which they may be printed, or paper on which 
they may have been written. 

(6) Commence the lesson with the simplest questions. 
Give an opportunity for the mental machinery to get un- 
der motion. 

(7) Address questions in a pleasant manner. Impa- 
tience should not be displayed over stupid replies or evi- 
dences of ignorance. Give due weight to all replies, whether 
correct or only approximately correct. Do not greet a 
wrong answer with an abrupt expression, or emphasize it 
by repeating it. Slide over it easily and press for another 
reply. Do not gaze or stare at the student who is answering 
the question. 

(8) Persist with patience until the answer to a given 
question is secured from some member of the class. The 
form of the question may be modified if necessary, but the 
teacher should not be impatient to furnish the answer to a 
question which he has propounded to the class. 

(9) Elliptical questions are in order, provided they are 
not used too frequently, and provided, also, that that por- 
tion of the statement which is left for the student to supply 
is an important part of it — for example, "If any man suf- 
fer as a Christian let him not be * * * * 



THE ART OF QUESTIONING 113 

(10) In the teaching of classes, where answers may not 
reasonably be expected, the instruction may be couched in 
the form of questions which the leader will answer himself, 
and in this way some of the advantages of the question 
method be reaped. 

(11) In the combination of the lecture method and the 
recitation method, the rule should be as Trumbull suggests, 
first questions, then comments. 

(12) Every effort should be made by the teacher to 
bring about a questioning attitude in the classroom. The 
students should be encouraged to express their questions 
to the teacher, and also to one another. Dr. Stalker says, 
"Socrates asked questions which his disciples tried to an- 
swer. Jesus provoked his disciples to ask questions which 
he answered." 

REFERENCES FOR READING —LESSONS XVI. AND XVII. 

*8even Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 37-38, 96-104, 113-114. 
How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 57-62. 
Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 176-196. 
*The Art of Questioning. Fitch. (10 cents.) 
The Art of Securing Attention. Fitch, pp. 54-55. 
Mistakes in Teaching. Hughes, pp. 72-73. 
Securing and Retaining Attention. Hughes, pp. 59-62. 
Elements of Pedagogy. White, pp. 178-192. 
*Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 90-116. 
Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school. Burton & 
Mathews, pp. 45-59. 
Normal Course. Pease, Vol. I., pp. 146-149. 
Revised Normal Lessons. Hurlbut, pp. 93-96. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Only through his own full knowledge of the subject can he 
understand the difficulties met by the pupil, or be able to de- 
termine when the pupil has mastered the lesson, and to follow 
it with thorough drills and reviews. As well insist that a 
general need know nothing of a battle-field because he is not to 
do the actual fighting, as that a teacher may get on with 
slight knowledge because his pupil must do the studying. 
The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, p. 97. 

^Ve may take a hint, I think, from the practice of the bar in 
this respect; and, especially in questioning by way of exam- 
ination. We may remember that the answers of the children, 
if they could be taken down at the moment, ought to form 



114 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

a complete, orderly, and clear summary of the entire contents 
of the lesson. The Art of Questioning. Fitch, p. 47. 

The questions used in recitations should be so arranged as to 
unfold the subject in a logical order — a very important mat- 
ter. The order in which a subject is unfolded may make 
the pupil's knowledge clearer and more permanent, or it 
may confuse and muddle it. The teacher's tests should be 
logically arranged and systematic. The Elements of Pedagogy. 
White, p. 179. 

Vague and indefinite questions I have always observed pro- 
duce three different results according to those to whom they 
are addressed: the really thoughtful and sensible boy is sim- 
ply bewildered by them, the bold and confident boy who does 
not think answers at random ; a third class not very keen, but 
sly and knowing nevertheless, acquire a knack of absorbing 
the structure of the teacher's sentences so as to find out 
which answer he expects. The Art of Questioning. Fitch, pp. 
40-41. 

When a lawyer, in examining or in cross-examining a wit- 
ness on the stand, shall read off all his questions from a paper 
held in his hand; when any two men who are discussing 
politics shall stand up before each other and read off their 
questions and answers to each other; when two persons in 
ordinary conversation shall follow closely their written notes 
in all that they saw on both sides — then, and not before will 
it be time for a Sunday-school teacher to consider the pro- 
priety of his relying on a printed set of questions, in his en- 
deavor to aid a scholar to know what he would cause him to 
know, and in his effort to ascertain how much that scholar al- 
ready does know. Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 187. 

As Mr. Beecher has forcefully phrased it: "Food proffered 
when there is no appetite is nauseating. Information prof- 
fered prematurely is worse than wasted. It is stupefying, har- 
dening." Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 181. 

The educational value of a well-chosen question is that it 
enlarges a child's intellectual horizon, suggests a new possi- 
bility of knowledge, a new fact or explanation of fact, and so 
stimulates his powers of thought. The parent and teacher 
alike should aim at fixing in a child's mind a habit of inquiry 
by repeatedly directing his attention to what is happening 
around him, and encouraging him to find out how these events 
are brought about. Here, of course, great discernment needs 
to be shown in selecting problems which the child's previous 
knowledge will enable him to grapple with. This exercise of 
the young mind in discovering the reasons of things involves 
a training in orderly recollection; in stimulating him to go 
back to past experiences in search of fruitful analogies, as 
well as to principles already acquired in search of explana- 
tions. The Teacher's Hand-Book of Psychology. Sully, p. 399. 



ME ABT OF ILLUSTRATING 115 



XYIIL THE ART OF ILlLUSTRATING 

1. Kinds of Illustration. The word illustration is de- 
rived from the Latin word meaning "to light up." An 
illustration is something that sheds light on a subject by 
comparison which is made between the subject that is to be 
illuminated and an object that is already known to the 
student. For example, a locomotive is sometimes called an 
iron horse. Illustrations are of two kinds, designated as 
verbal and visible or material. We confine our attention in 
this lesson principally to the former. Verbal illustrations 
may be made in a single word or phrase, in a comparison, 
or a story. 

(1) Very many of our words and phrases are of an illus- 
trative character. We speak of a storm of anger, of a 
down-hill career, of a burning question. The style of many 
of our most forcible preachers, like Spurgeon, Cuyler and 
Moody, has been marked by this illustrative character. 
These men seem to have thought in pictures, painted in 
single words or phrases. The Bible is full of such illustra- 
tions. The Oriental mind naturally expresses itself in 
figures of speech : the heart is said to tremble, and to pant ; 
despised persons are spoken of as dogs ; the fields are called 
upon to be joyful. 

(2) Illustrations are frequently made by direct com- 
parison, as : "He shall be like a tree/' "God is our refuge," 
"The light of the body is the eye." 

(3) The story is a familiar form of illustration. As 
Gregory says, "The illustration may be framed purposely 
for the subject, as were the parables of our Lord and the 



116 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

fables of iEsop and others, or they may be selected from 
history or common observation/' 

2. The Value of Illustrations. (1) Illustrations seem to 
satisfy an inherent necessity of the human mind. Spencer 
says, "The truths of number, of form, or relationships in 
position, were all originally drawn from objects, and to 
present these truths to the child in the concrete is to let 
him learn them as the race learnt them." Eaces in their 
infancy speak in the language of pictures. The language 
of the Indian is pictorial. The child loves the story, revel- 
ing in the narrative and never tiring of the repetition 
of it. Men never grow so old that they do not enjoy a 
story, and that address, other things being equal, which is 
pointed with a story is apt to be most pleasing to the mind. 

(2) Illustrations aid perception. "The eye," it has been 
well said, "is the pioneer of all learning/' Sense percep- 
tion, as we have seen, is the fundamental channel of all 
knowledge. The comparison, the picture, the object, the 
story, conveys to the mind what an abstract statement is 
powerless to convey. The example helps one's compre- 
hension of the rule in arithmetic or grammar. The picture 
throws a flood of light on the definition of the dictionary. 
Herein is fulfilled one of the great laws of teaching, that 
the concrete shall precede the abstract. 

(3) This leads us to note that illustrations are built on 
the principle of proceeding from the known to the un- 
known. "Every new plan," says Dr. Hervey, "or way of 
looking at things, or doctrine, is received into the mind on 
one condition only — that it be introduced by a comrade al- 
ready there. Then when the new idea calls from without 
its f ellowlanswers from within and an entrance is effected." 
When a friend in travelling abroad has witnessed some 
strange object and attempts to give us a description of it, 
he naturally resorts to a comparison of it with something 
that we have seen in our own country or neighborhood. 



THE ART OP ILLUSTRATING 117 

Especially is this true of religious instruction. The ideas 
are so different from those with which we are familiar in 
everyday life that it would be almost impossible to carry 
them to the human mind except by comparison with the 
objects of sense perception. God is, therefore, portrayed 
as having the parts of a man : He is the king, the father, the 
lover. Heaven is described as a place ; it has walls, streets, 
length and breadth. Duty to God is represented under the 
forms of the service of a servant in the household, in the 
vineyard, in the care of money. Jesus "likens" various 
phases of the kingdom of God to the mustard seed and the 
leaven, to the growth of the seed, to a king taking account 
of his servants, to ten virgins going to a wedding. So 
Jesus, when He wants to convey to the* disciples the- thought 
of spiritual growth through connection with Him, resorts 
to the simile of the vine and the branches, or feeding upon 
bread or drinking water. How naturally He illustrates this 
great spiritual truth to the woman of Samaria, and how else 
could it have been conveyed to her so forcibly as through 
the familiar object of water which she had come to draw ? 

(4) Illustrations attract attention, and through atten- 
tion enlist interest, and through these assist memory. We 
have seen how fundamentally necessary attention is to all 
learning. We have seen also how interest must precede sus- 
tained attention, and attention must precede memory. We 
might add another link at the beginning of this chain, and 
show how necessary illustration is to interest. The child, as 
already noted, craves the illustration and is held by the 
story when abstract teaching would fall on listless ears. The 
older student comes back from a mental wandering at the 
sound of a story. How many a sermon has been remem- 
bered because of a striking illustration which has brought' 
back in its train by association of ideas the whole? group of 
thoughts presented. 

(5) Illustrations quicken the imagination. Here again 



118 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

we have to do with a mental capacity that is of utmost 
service in all learning, and that is, in turn, stimulated hy 
the illustration. The fondness of the child for the story is, 
perhaps, accounted for by the fact that the imagination 
plays so large a part in its mental activities, preceding, like 
perception, the full development of the reflective powers. 
It is to this element in the life of the child that the story 
appeals. It is not unnatural that illustrations should thus 
appeal to the imagination. The imagination is the picture- 
forming power of the mind. The mind revels in picture 
material and an illustration is in the last analysis only a 
picture. 

(6) Illustrations help reasoning. Adams, in his Primer 
on Teaching, calls our attention to the fact that illustra- 
tions are a form of deductive reasoning, being by their very 
nature examples of a general principle or law. The prop- 
osition which the mind fails to reach by abstract reasoning 
may be grasped by the aid of a concrete example in the form 
of an illustration. 

(7) Illustrations arouse the conscience. If allowed to 
tell their own tale and point their own moral, illustrations 
are powerful for the conveying of moral and religious truth. 
No case is more to the point than the story of the lamb 
with which Nathan awakened the sleeping convictions of 
David and carried to his mind a sense of guilt. Dr. Her- 
vey quotes Miss Wiltsie's experience in reaching* the con- 
science of a boy through a story. "There was in my kinder- 
garten," she writes, " a little boy whose deceit and cruelty 
were quite abnormal; he would smile in my face with 
seraphic sweetness while his heavy shoe would be crushing 
his neighbor's toes. * * * He seemed incorrigible. At 
last I wrote a story entitled 'The Fairy True Child/ into 
which I put my strongest effort to reach this untruthful 
child. I told it to the class, and before it was concluded 
this boy's head was low upon his breast, his cheeks aflame 



THE ART OP ILLUSTRATING 119 

with conscious guilt. No direct reference was made to him ; 
no other child thought of him in connection with the story. 
The next day he asked to have it repeated, and his conduct 
was noticeably better; the story became his normal tonic, 
and one glad day he threw his arms about me, saying he 
wanted to keep his Fairy True Child always." 
3. Characteristics of effective illustrations : 

(1) Illustrations sliould illustrate. An illustration may 
be compared with a pane of glass whose function it is to per- 
mit a person to see clearly the objects outside the window. 
A pane of glass that is defective attracts attention to itself 
and prevents the person from seeing clearly outside objects. 
In the same way illustrations should be so transparent that 
the mind loses sight for the time of the illustration in its 
contemplation of the truth which it is supposed to illumine. 
For the same reason illustrations should never be used for 
their own sake. Stained glass windows are useful in their 
place, but not for the purpose of furnishing the inmates 
of the building with a view of people moving in the street. 
It is a great temptation to some speakers to repeat a good 
story for the effect of the story without reference to the 
making of a point; indeed, a point is sometimes made to 
permit the telling of the story. This may be admissible 
in. an after-dinner speech, but not in the classroom. Dr. 
William 'M. Taylor, as quoted by Dr. Hervey, told once of 
a conversation with a carpenter, in which he advised him 
to- use certain decorations. "That," said the carpenter, 
"would violate the first rule of architecture. We must never 
construct ornament, but only ornament construction/' So 
it is in story-telling. 

(2) Illustrations should be simple. The purpose of the 
illustration is to make clear what it would otherwise be 
difficult to understand. The folly of supplying for the 
illumination of a subject a long or complicated illustration, 
which itself needs to be illuminated, must therefore be ap- 



120 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

parent. Illustrations should not be too long or abound with 
too many details which confuse the mind and prevent it 
from fixing on the point to be illustrated. 

(3) It is a mistake to use many illustrations. Illustra- 
tions should be used to illuminate only those points of the 
lesson which might otherwise be obscure. Two illustrations 
presented in quick succession, illuminating the same point, 
are apt to neutralize each other. 

(4) Accurate knowledge is necessary to the preparation 
of effective illustrations. The teacher should have accurate 
knowledge of the subject he is trying to illustrate. At no 
point is haziness or indefiniteness in the teacher so apparent 
as in his attempt to illustrate a subject which he himself 
does not understand. As Gregory says, "The power of illus- 
tration comes only out of a clear and familiar knowledge. 
The unknowing teacher is the blind trying to lead the blind 
with only an empty lamp to light the way." Almost equally 
as important is it for the teacher to have accurate knowl- 
edge of the realm from which he draws his illustration. 
Otherwise he may make himself ridiculous to some of his 
auditors who have a clearer knowledge of the field of his 
illustration and detect absurdities in it. as did the audi- 
tors of the speaker known to the writer, who, in describing 
the moral pitfalls attending the steps of a young man, told 
of a man wandering among the oil wells of Pennsvlvania 
and falling into one of them and being lost ! Mr. Beecher 
says, "If you should undertake to 'work ship' in an audience 
where there is a good old sea captain, and you should make 
a mistake and speak as though you thought the taffrail 
was the rudder,'he would feel contempt for you." 

(5) Illustrations should be within the range of the 
knowledge and experience of the student. The very prin- 
ciple of the illustration is to proceed from the known to 
the unknown, to find something in the experience of the 
student to which the new knowledge may be attached. "To 



THE ART OP ILLUSTRATING 121 

compare the unknown with the unknown," as Gregory says, 
"is to set the blind leading the blind. Of what use is it 
to talk of Titanic strength to one who never heard of 
Titans, or of oceanic grandeur or mountain sublimities to 
those who never saw either ocean or mountain ?" 

(6) Illustrations should not be pressed too far. Every 
illustration must of necessity contain subsidiary features 
which do not go to illustrate the subject in hand. Some 
well-meaning students of the Bible have pressed the sym- 
bolism of the Tabernacle, the parables of Jesus and other 
illustrations of sacred writ to an absurd and harmful de- 
gree. "No parable goes on all fours/' Children especially 
are apt to grasp the subsidiary elements of an illustration 
and to press its ridiculous or irrelevant features to the 
front. As a rule an illustration should not be expected to 
illuminate more than one point, and that the point under 
emphasis at the time. 

(7) Illustrations must not be regarded as proofs. While 
they are an aid to reasoning, as has already been indicated, 
they are not intended to demonstrate a proposition unless 
they are facts that point with many other facts to a general 
law. So strenuously did Locke feel this that he argued 
against illustrations as the enemies of truth because they 
lead the mind astray by their analogies. Some people will 
close an argument with a story as though in triumphant 
demonstration of the truth of their position, whereas it is 
simply an effort to make more clear their own view of the 
case. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

*Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 153-166. 
*Picture Work for Teachers and Mothers. Walter L. Hervey, 
Ph.D. (30 cents.) 
*How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 50-57. 
*Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 116-129. 
The Art of Securing Attention. Fitch, pp. 60-67. 
The Teacher and the Child. Mark, pp. 62-67. 



122 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

Yale Lectures on Preaching. Henry Ward Beecher, Vol. I., 
Chapter on Rhetorical Illustrations, pp. 1J>4-180. ($1.50.) 
The Art of Illustration. C. H. Spurgeon. ($1.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Happy the teacher who has inherited by nature or attained 
bv art a facility in forming clear and simple illustrations. He 
may lack many other useful qualifications, but with this one 
he can scarcely fail to be interesting and instructive. It needs 
but little examination to show us that all great orators and 
popular writers excel in this power of illustration. Take 
any of the^great speeches of Burke or Webster, even the most 
argumentative, and they will be found to sparkle all through 
with illustrations, sometimes given in full-wrought figures, 
but more frequently in fit words or phrases which suggest 
picturesque analogies, and resemblances as full of beauty as 
of light. How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 50-51. 

That was a profound and true saying uttered by President 
G. Stanley Hall not long ago, that "of all the things that a 
teacher should know how to do the most important, without 
any exception, is to be able to tell a story." Picture Work, 
Hervey, p. 31. 

Almost all other forms of illustration depend upon what is 
known as analogy. Before we can have an analogy we must 
deal with four ideas. These must be arranged in pairs in such 
a way that the relation between the first pair of ideas is the 
same as that between the second pair. "I am the vine, ye are 
the branches." Here the four ideas are, I (i. e., Jesus), the 
vine, ye (i. e., Jesus' followers), the branches. To bring out 
the analogy the four ideas must be placed in two groups, 
Jesus and Jesus' followers in one group, and the vine and its 
branches in the other. Thus it is stated in this way: Jesus 
has the same relation to His followers as the vine has to its 
branches. An analogy can be stated in the same way as you 
used to state a proportion problem when you were at school. 

Jesus : His followers : : the vine : its branches. 
This is read, as you no doubt remember: "As Jesus is to His 
followers, so is the vine to its branches." The statement is 
equally true if the second pair is put first: as the vine is to 
the branches, so is Jesus to His followers. In illustration it is 
usually better to place the better known pair first. The dis- 
ciples were supposed to know the relation between the vine 
and its branches, and were called upon to observe that the 
same relation held between Jesus and His followers. Primer 
on Teaching. Adams, pp. 119-120. 

But the true use of illustration by a teacher is in his avail- 
ing himself of that which the learner already knows, as a help 
to the understanding of that which the learner does not yet 
know. Every scholar already knows something. Every teach- 
er ought to know more than his scholar. In the teacher's 
effort to cause his scholar to gain fresh knowledge, he can 
wisely make use of an illustration — of a light-shedding com- 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING 123 

parison — out of the scholar's stock of knowledge, to make clear 
a truth beyond the scholar's present possessions, but "within 
the teacher's realm of knowledge. And without this work of 
light-shedding, everything else that any teacher does or is, 
goes for naught in the process of teaching. Teaching and 
Teachers. Trumbull, p. 154. 

Finally, the points of practical story-telling may be thus 
outlined: 1. See it. If you are to make me see it you must 
see it yourself. 2. Feel it If it is to touch your class it must 
first have touched you. 3. Shorten it It is probably too long. 
Brevity is the soul of story-telling. 4. Expand it. It is prob- 
ably meager in necessary background, in details. 5. Master 
it. Practice. Repetition is the mother of stories well told; 
readiness, the secret of classes well held. 6. Repeat it. Don't 
be afraid of retelling a good story. The younger the chil- 
dren are, the better they like old friends. But everyone likes a 
"twice-told tale," Picture Work. Hervey, pp. 42-43. 



124: THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



XIX. THE AET OF ILLUSTRATING (Concluded.) 

1. Visible or material illustrations. We turn our at- 
tention in this lesson to illustrations which are known as 
visible or material. Among them may be cited illustrations 
by means of objects, blackboards, maps and pictures. 

(1) Object illustrations. We must distinguish, first of 
all, between object illustration and object-lessons. In ob- 
ject-lessons the object is studied largely for its own sake, 
in order to discover its properties and to develop the powers 
of observation and sense perception in the student. Thus 
a student would study a plant to discover its classification 
and the laws of its growth, or a precious stone to detect 
its points of difference from other precious stones. But 
in object illustration the plant would be used to illum- 
inate some statement concerning growth, it may be in the 
spiritual life or in the development of the mind, while the 
precious stone would be brought to view to illustrate the 
value of small articles or the beauty of nature's productions. 
Among the objects which Dr. Shaufner, in his book on 
''Ways of Working," suggests may be used to illustrate re- 
ligious subjects are : the flower seed, to illustrate the resur- 
rection; the magnet, to illustrate the unknown power of 
the Holy Spirit; the watch, to illustrate the complex char- 
acter of the human frame as it sets forth the wisdom of 
God; a blank book, to illustrate how God keeps a record 
of our lives; an artificial flower, to represent hypocrisy; 
a single strand of thread, easily broken, but being mani- 
folded, hard to break, to represent the binding force of evil 
habits; an ordinary trap, to suggest the deceptiveness of 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING 125 

temptation ; the processes of photography, to illustrate the 
sensitiveness of the heart to good and evil influences. 

.i5 in the case of verbal illustrations, so the use of object 
illustrations should be safeguarded in order to the greatest 
effectiveness, (a) The objects so« used should not be per- 
mitted to absorb the interest in* themselves. Like verbal 
illustrations, they should be used for the purpose of illus- 
tration and not for their own intrinsic attractiveness. 
(&) For the same reason, the object should be kept out of 
the sight of the class until it is to be used, and removed 
from the sight as soon as it has served its purpose, (c) Ap- 
propriate objects should be used. Some of the appropriate 
objects used by Jesus were the little child, the washing of 
the disciples' feet, the bread and wine, (d) Object illus- 
trations, like verbal illustrations, should be used sparingly. 
An occasional introduction of this feature will be more 
effective than its regular use. 

(2) Blackboard illustrations. Too much cannot be said 
in advocacy of the use of the blackboard in teaching. No 
successful teacher in our day schools would attempt to pro- 
ceed without such assistance, and its use is not less essen- 
tial in religious instruction. When it is not feasible, because 
of an aggregation of classes in a schoolroom, to make use 
of a stationary board, class slates or small portable boards 
should be substituted. For classes of younger students the 
illustrations will take the form of maps, diagrams to indi- 
cate forms and relative location of the objects described, 
designs to impress the teaching of the lesson. For older 
students the noting of important words in the lesson, the 
writing of summaries or conclusions to be kept in note- 
books, as well as occasional drawings to illustrate some 
phase of the truth that is under consideration, are always 
helpful. The most important general comment that can 
be made on methods of using the blackboard is that for the 
greatest interest the work should grow in the class under 



126 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

the eye of the student. While the teacher without ability 
in this direction may feel impelled to bring a ready-made 
sketch into the class, he should prepare himself, if possible, 
to acquit himself with credit in this particular, even under 
the critical eye of students who may have had greater ad- 
vantages in the art of drawing than himself. Fortunately, 
drawing is now a recognized feature of the curriculum of 
our day schools, so that the new generation of Bible teachers 
will be able to do justice to this method of instruction. For 
those who have not enjoyed such advantages valuable sug- 
gestions are offered in such books as "Illustrative Black- 
board Sketching," by W. Bertha Hintz ; "The Blackboard in 
Sunday-school/' by H. T. Bailey, and "Pictured Truth/' 
by Robert F. Y. Pierce. 

(3) Maps. The drawing of maps is an important phase 
of blackboard illustrations. This should be associated with 
the use of wall maps, or those found in many Bibles, or 
that can be purchased separately. Eelief maps of Palestine, 
the Sinai Peninsula, the Bible lands, are published by the 
David C. Cook Publishing Company, Chicago, 111., for five 
cents each. "Map Modelling/' by Maltby, will give assist- 
ance in the making of maps, as will "The Bible Atlas," by 
J. L. Hurlbut (Rand, McNally & Co.). Instructions for 
the making of a sand map will be found in Hervey's "Pic- 
ture Work." 

(4) Pictures. Copies of classical pictures and famous 
paintings may be procured for class use, at one cent each, 
of the Perry Picture Company, Maiden, Mass., and the 
W. A. Wilde Publishing Company, Boston, Mass. Photo- 
graphs of scenes in the Holy Land, at ten cents each, may 
be secured of the Globe Bible Publishing Company, Phila- 
delphia. Underwood & Underwood, of New York, furnish 
stereopticon views of the Holy Land with greatly improved 
stereoscopes for class use. 

2. How to secure illustrations. (1) Cultivate the im- 



THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING 127 

agination. As illustrations quicken the imagination, so 
they are furnished by the imagination. He who is entirely 
devoid of imagination will have much difficulty in produc- 
ing original illustrations. 

(2) Develop the habit of observation. A constant pur- 
pose to find illustrations in the ordinary experiences of 
everyday life will soon bring to the teacher an inexhaust- 
ible storehouse of such helpful material. 

( 3 ) The ability to formulate illustrations grows by exer- 
cise. Mr. Beecher tells us that the use of illustrations came 
to be as natural to him as breathing, but that he came to 
use fifty, to one in the early years of his ministry, when 
they were comparatively few and far apart; but he devel- 
oped the tendency that was latent in him and educated him- 
self in that respect, so that whatever skill he had in this 
direction was largely the result of education. Gregory says, 
"A teacher who persists in the effort will soon find that 
illustrations occur to him more and more readily, and that 
unexpected and heretofore unnoticed analogies and resem- 
blances will strike him from all directions." 

(4) Each lesson should be studied with reference to its 
picture-making features. The imagination should be 
brought to play upon the material of each lesson in such a 
way as to elicit from it that which will appeal to the love 
of the pictorial in the student. Dramatic situations, vivid 
coloring, heroic actions, should not be overlooked. 

(5) Among the sources of illustrations may be men- 
tioned the following: (a) The Bible. No book is more 
prolific in illustrative material than the Scriptures them- 
selves. David in his Psalms, Solomon in his Proverbs, 
Isaiah and Ezekiel, Jesus and Paul, wrote and spoke in 
language that was saturated with the picture element. 
(b) Nature. This was a fruitful source of the illustrations 
used by Jesus. The fields, the lilies, the seed, the harvest, 
were all used by Him to illustrate spiritual truths. A study 



128 i THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

of the natural sciences, which are but an orderly collation of 
the facts of nature, will also repay in appropriate illustra- 
tions for biblical subjects, (c) History and biography are 
full of the best illustrative material — best because it is 
taken from life and from the realm of actual facts, (d) 
Fiction — an imaginative form of history and biography — 
also abounds in illustrations for him who has his eyes open 
for them, (e) Books of illustrations. These are suggestive 
to him who has not yet acquired skill in securing illustra- 
tions for himself. The best book of illustrations, however, 
is the one that is prepared by the student for himself, the 
scrap or note book, in which he enters from the record of 
daily life in the newspapers, or from any of the sources 
noted above, incidents and facts which will illuminate his 
teaching of religious truth. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

•Picture Work for Teachers and Mothers. Hervey. 

*Ways of Working. A. F. Schauffler, D.D. ($1.) Object and 
Blackboard Teaching, pp. 95-118. 

*The Blackboard in Sunday-School. Henry Turner Bailey. 

*Map Modelling. Dr. A. E. Maltby. ($1.) 

Pictured Truth. Robert F. Y. Pierce. ($1.25.) 

Illustrative Blackboard Sketching. W. Bertha Hintz. (30 
cents.) 

Securing and Retaining Attention. Hughes, pp. 62-66. 

The Life of Jesus. W. H. Davis and Prof. J. A. MacVannel; 
Men of the Bible. W. H. Davis and Prof. George Allen Hub- 
bell; Travels of Paul. Melvin Jackson and Prof. W. G. Ballan- 
tine. (25 cents each.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Words are not the only medium through which mind speaks 
to mind. The thinker has a hundred ways to express his 
thoughts. The eye talks with a various eloquence; and the 
skilled orator finds in the lip and brow, in head and hand, 
in the shrugging shoulder and the stamping foot, organs for 
most intelligible speech. The gestures of John B. Gough 
often tell more than the clearest sentences of other speakers. 
A German described him as "the man what talks mit his coat- 
tails," referring to some illustration in which the facile orator 
has made a flirt of his coat-tails tell the idea he wished to 
express. Deafmutes can talk together by the hour by signs, 
without spelling out a single word. Among savage peoples 



THE ART OP ILLUSTRATING 129 

whose language is too meager to meet the native needs of their 
minds, symbolic actions supply the lack of words. There is 
also speech in pictures. From the rudest chalk sketch on the 
blackboard to the highest work of the painter's art, no teach- 
ing is more swift and impressive than that of pictorial repre- 
sentation. The eye gathers here at a glance more than the 
ear could learn from an hour of verbal description. Seven 
Laws of Teaching. Gregory, p. 57. 

In a Sunday review once a lesson happened to be on Samuel, 
and I was to speak to the scholars. I asked if there were any 
boys there by the name of Samuel and four boys arose. Choos- 
ing the best looking of them, I called him to the platform, 
blindfolded him, then I put the end of a thread into his hands, 
myself holding the other end, and said, "Samuel, when you 
feel this draw, follow." In this way I led him all about the 
Sunday-school room, the only connection between him and 
myself being that thread. The whole school arose to watch. 
Presently I said, "Samuel, hold back." He stood still, I kept 
on, the thread broke. Going back to the platform, I said, "See 
how Samuel was led safely so long as he followed the pull of 
the thread. See how he lost his connection with me when 
he held back; so the Samuel of our lesson followed when God 
called, and said, 'Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth.' If 
he had held back and refused, God's guidance would have 
been offered in vain." Ways of Working. Shauffler, pp. 102- 
103. 

The attractiveness of the object chains the child's atten- 
tion to the thing rather than the thought, and we spend our 
whole lives in trying to spring away from things of sense 
to spiritual things. Such display materially defeats the pur- 
pose intended to be accomplished. The Point of Contact in 
Teaching. DuBois, p. 98. 

Not merely for children, but for grown folk too is this 
kind of picture work a means of teaching. In a densely 
populated quarter of New York City there is to-day a minister 
who is not content with mere word-pictures. He brings into 
the pulpit the objects themselves — it may be a candle, a plumb 
line, a live frog, an air pump. Ezekiel went still further, and 
not only used objects but actions to enforce and illustrate his 
terrible sermon: "To the amazement of the people, setting 
them all wondering what he could mean, he appears one day 
before them with a fire, a pair of scales, a knife, and a barber's 
razor. These were the heads, and doom was the burden of his 
sermon. Sweeping off, what an Eastener considers it a shame 
to lose, his beard and the hair also from his head, this bald 
and beardless man divides them into three parts, weighing 
them in the balance. One-third he burns in the fire; one-third 
he smites with the knife; and the remaining third he tosses 
in the air, scattering it on the winds of heaven." Thus the 
prophet under divine direction foretells the disgrace, division, 
destruction, dispersion of his people. Picture Work, Hervey, 
pp. 12-13. 



130 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



XX. THE LESSON STUDY 

One method of conducting this lesson is the actual study 
of a scriptural passage in the class session as though the 
members of the class were in their own home, devoting the 
entire time of the session to the study. The following is 
a stud}' of Acts 17 :1-15 actually worked out in such a 
class session. The books used were Eeference Bible, Au- 
thorized and Eevised Versions, Modern Speech ISTew Testa- 
ment, Concordance, Bible Text Book, Atlas, Bible Diction- 
ary, Commentaries and Note Books. The crosses, made as 
the lesson was worked out, indicate significant facts to be 
gathered up and emphasized in preparing the material for 
the Teaching Plan. 

LESSON STUDY OF ACTS 17 : 1-15 

How the Thessalonians and the Bereans received the Gospel. 

1. Text 

(1) Read it over. Read it again aloud. 

X Dominant impression from these readings — the 
contrast between the Thessalonians and the Bereans 
in the reception of the Gospel. 

(Because the lesson seems to center here, and for 
lack of time to do more, special attention will be de- 
voted to vs. 10-13.) 

(2) Read Revised Version in comparison with Author- 
ized Version. 

V. 11. "Examine" for "search." 

V. 12. "The Greek women of honorable estate" 
for "honorable women," indicating social status of 
the women. 



THE LESSON STUDY 131 

V. 13. "Proclaimed" for "preached." 

"Stirring up and troubling" for "stirred 
up." 

(3) Modern Speech New Testament (or The Twen- 
tieth Century New Testament) . 

V. 11. "Nobler disposition" for "more noble." 
V. 12. "Gentle women" for "honorable women." 
XV. 13. "Incited the mob to riot" for "stirred up 
the people." (A point of contact here, 
especially for class of boys.) 

(4) The Student's Own Version. — The story written 
in his own words. 

(5) Eeferences. 
(a) Marginal. 

V. 10. Acts 9:25. "Let down by the wall in a 
basket." Not the first time that Paul 
had fled from danger. Was this cour- 
ageous ? 
V. 11. Isaiah 34:16. "Seek ye out of the book 
of the Lord." 
Luke 16 :29. "They have Moses and the 
prophets." The Scriptures the Bereans 
had to search. 
John 5:39. "Ye search the Scriptures." 
(&) Concordance. 

Yields only John 5 :39, and Acts 17:11, as 
above. 

(6) Bible Text Book (under Scriptures). 

X V. 11. John 7:52. "Search and look." An in- 
quiry to learn whether the truth had 
been spoken. 
2. Explanations. 

(1) Geography, History, Biography and Cus- 
toms. 
Map. Paul's second missionary journey. 



132 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

Thessalonica and Berea in Macedonia 
northwest of the iEgean Sea. 
Bible Dictionary. Berea fifty miles south- 
west from Thessalonica, 23 miles from 
the sea; not a city of great fame; not 
mentioned in the Epistles of Paul. 
(2) Comments. 

(a) Original. 

X V. 11. Why were the Bereans more 

noble ? 

They displayed openness of mind. 

Searched the Scriptures daily. 

Studied whether these things were so. 

Here we are getting at the very heart 
of the lesson. 

V. 13. "Stirred up and troubled." 
Would not receive the G-ospel themselves 
and would not allow others to receive it. 
Traveled fifty miles to make a discord. 
(&) Commentary. 

(International Revised Commentary, 
by J. S. Howson; or Cambridge Bible, 
by J. R. Lumby ; or Handbook for Bible 
Classes, by T. M. Lindsay. Also "Paul 
the Missionary" by W. M. Taylor, and 
other biographies of Paul.) 
X V. 11. (Howson.) "Nobility of 
soul shown in the patient spirit of in- 
quiry." Suggesting duty of honest in- 
quiry. 

Y. 11. (Taylor.) "Success of the 
Christian teacher depends upon the 
spirit of the hearers as really as upon 
manner in which he presents the Gos- 
pel." 



THE LESSON STUDY 133 

3. Observation. 

We now have the material before us. What shall we do 
with it? Now is the time to sit back and think over it. 
Now is the time for it to lie in solution, perhaps for several 
days. Now is the time for prayer, with which we are sup- 
posed to have begun, and in the spirit of which we are sup- 
posed to have continued the study. What is the general im- 
pression ? Is not the impression made by the first reading, 
and re-reading of the lesson, confirmed, namely, the contrast 
between the two ways of receiving the Gospel represented by 
the Thessalonians and the Bereans? 

X How the Bereans received it : 

(1) Openness of mind, i. e., a sympathetic attitude. 

(2) Searched the Scriptures daily, i. e., an earnest and 
daily study. Note that they were not yet Christians. 

(3) Whether these things were so, i. e., a spirit of 
honest inquiry. Did not take everything for granted. 

Eesult: They believed. Men say, "I can't believe." 
One cannot believe until he has studied something to 
believe. 
X How the Thessalonians received it : 

They would not receive the Gospel and would not allow 
others to receive it. 

4. Teachings. 

The contrast. Two ways of receiving the Gospel. 
Which is my way? Am I a Berean or a Thessalonian ? 

Comments on this method of study. The method will 
be recognized as inductive — the laying of a broad founda- 
tion of historical statements and facts on which the super- 
structure shall be built ; the proceeding from facts to prin- 
ciples. Therefore we insist upon a thorough study of the 
text first, before any helps are consulted, and the study of 
those helps first that bear on the text rather than upon the 
interpretation. The inexperienced teacher will make the 



134 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

mistake of proceeding too quickly to a search for the spir- 
itual application of the lesson. This search should be with- 
held until the text has been fully studied and the location 
and history of the places and the biography of the people 
concerned have been fully fixed in the mind. Only as this 
is done can right inferences be drawn and justifiable ap- 
plications made. The facts should be allowed to lie in so- 
lution as long as possible and crystallize naturally. In 
making a selection of points to be emphasized thoses should 
be chosen which come naturally out of the study and which 
are homogeneous in character. It will be noted in the above 
study that several interesting lines of investigation were 
not followed up, but that the study followed very closely 
the contrast between the spirit of the Thessalonians and 
that of the Bereans in the reception of the Gospel. 
(See Lesson XIV on Method.) 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 23-27. 

How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 30-37. 

Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 116-124. 

*The Teacher and the Child. Mark, pp. 69-87. 

Normal Course. Pease. Second Year. pp. 156-159. 

Ways of Working. Schauffler, pp. 53-76. 

The Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, pp. 103-131. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Read the whole chapter (or lesson) through once for the 
•^rpose of getting a general idea of what it means. When 

i have finished this reading, close the book, and write 

brief statement in answer to the question: "What is the 
point of this passage?" (This direction is naturally more 
applicable to the study of a piece of pure literature, than of a 
practical essay like The Point of Contact.) 

Read the chapter, sentence by sentence, paragraph by para- 
graph, trying to grasp the meaning clearly, precisely, per- 
sonally. 

Some of the words contain "buried metaphors," pictures; 
see that you see these pictures, and are prepared to make 
others see them. 

Some of the sentences are expressed in abstract language, 
conveying a general truth; find concrete illustrations of every 



THE LESSON STUDY 135 

one of these. Where the author uses one form of statement, 
use another of your own. See in how many ways you can 
say the same thing. (There are many ways of putting things, 
as there are many flies in the fisherman's book.) 

This is the step of clearness, of detail, of picturing, of am- 
plification and enrichment of materials. Its purpose is to 
make the truth clear, definite, concrete, and so warm, living, 
and ready for action. 

Read the chapter, paragraph by paragraph, asking yourself, 
"What question is answered by this paragraph?" "What short 
statement will precisely express the point of this paragraph 
(and so be the answer to the question just framed)?" "What 
maxim, or text, or proverb, or pithy saying applies at just this 
point?" "How is this paragraph related to the whole? Does 
it express a new thought, or amplify one already developed? 
Does it suggest a paragraph or sentence in another connec- 
tion? how does it follow from what precedes? how lead to 
what follows? in a word, if it is a link, what are the co-ordinate 
links? 

Make an outline of the chapter or the book, with heads 
and sub-heads, being careful not to make heads sub-heads, 
or sub-heads heads. And, with all this thinking, be alert for 
personal meanings, for applications. 

This is the step of comparing, condensing, generalizing, 
binding together into wholes. Its purpose is to get to the 
truth by weeding out ideas that seemed true when standing 
alone, but which, on comparison, are seen to be false; and, by 
massing and organizing to make our mental forces into regu- 
lar troops, instead of guerillas and bushwhackers. 

To sum up: First, a rough general view, such as a civil 
engineer might gain by riding over the country he is to sur- 
vey. Second, clearness as to facts; warmth in details; putting 
yourself into the thing seen, or a thing felt. Third, compact- 
ing parts into wholes, seeing ends from beginnings, organizing 
for action. And at each step the thought of personal as- 
similation, and of use: "What does this mean to me? Is it 
true? Could I defend it? Do I disagree with it, and why? 
How can I use, apply, follow, live it? How make it live in 
the minds and lives of my pupils?" Syllabus to Point of Con- 
tact. Hervey, pp. 3-5. 

"What? Why? What of it?" is a plan of study of allitera- 
tive methods for the teacher, emphasized by Prof. W. C. Wil- 
kinson, not as original with himself, but as of venerable au- 
thority. "It is, in fact," he says, "an almost immemorial 
orator's analysis. First, the facts; next, the proof of the 
facts; then the consequences of the facts." This analysis has 
often been expanded into one known as "The Five W's: When? 
Where? Whom? What? Why?" Teaching and Teachers. 
Trumbull, p. 120. 

Goethe says: "Nothing is worse than a teacher who knows 
only as much as he has to make known to the scholar." Teach- 
ing and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 123. 



136 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

In the study of the Sunday-school lesson the teacher should 
have three principal ends in view: 1. To teach a thorough 
understanding of its meaning; 2. To ascertain the practical 
lesson which it teaches; 3. To find the illustrations and ex- 
planations by which it can be made plain and impressive to 
his class, ffow to Teach the Bible. Gregory, p, 30. 



THE TEACHING PLAN 137 



XXI. THE- TEACHING PLAN 

Among the advantages of preparing a teaching plan are 
the following : 

1. The elimination of the unessential. When the drift 
of the lesson and its central thought have been determined, 
it will be comparatively easy to separate minor and inci- 
dental points from those which bear directly upon the main 
point to be emphasized. This can best be done by the care- 
ful preparation of a teaching plan. 

2. Economy of time. Herein lies the secret of being 
able to finish the lesson within the lesson period. It is not 
the amount of material that causes so many teachers to 
come, to the end of the lesson period and find that they have 
not reached the main point of the lesson, but it is the failure 
to plan the material in such a way that what is essential 
may be presented within a given time. 

3. The lesson that is presented in accordance with a 
teaching plan will be followed in logical sequence, and on 
that account will be more easily remembered by those who 
are taught. 

4. Better results are secured, the arrangement of the 
points of contact, the right setting of illustrations, and the 
orderly leading up to the application to be made. 



The following is a teaching plan for a lesson in Acts 
17 :1-15, based upon the material secured in the study of 
our last lesson, and actually worked out in a class session : 

Lesson Plan for Acts 17:1-15, especially verses 10-13. 



138 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

(Prepared with reference to a class of boys from 16-18 
in mind.) 

1. Preparation. 

A great international complication now under discussion. 
Two countries involved. 

One open-minded, receptive to new influences. 
The other closed, prejudiced, tied to traditions. 

2. Presentation. 

Read around Acts 17 :10-13. 
The Bereans : 

Displayed openness of mind. 

Searched the Scriptures daily. 

Studied to see whether these things were so. 
The Thessalonians : 

Go back and read Acts 17 :1-10. 

Map showing relative location of and distance between 
Thessalonica and Berea. 

Would not receive the Gospel themselves and would 
not allow others to receive it. 

Traveled fifty miles to make a discord. 

Incited the mob to riot. 

3. Association or Comparison. 

Note the contrast between the Bereans on the one hand, 
and the Thessalonians on the other. 

Note a similar contrast in the reception of Christ, by 
the woman of Samaria on the one hand, and the Scribes and 
Pharisees on the other. 

The same kind of contrast to be noted in the business 
methods of two men, one progressive, up-to-date, open- 
minded, with reference to new methods, searching to see 
whether they are desirable; the other, with a closed mind, 
prejudiced against everything that is new, trying to hold 
others back in their progress. 

4. Generalization. 

The proper attitude toward a study of the Scriptures, 



THE TEACHING PLAN 139 

or any other truth, one of open-mindedness, sympathy, and 
eager search and inquiry. 

The duty of honest inquiry. Doubt is not a sin. ffhe 
sin is in the closed mind. 

5. Application. 

Are you a Thessalonian or a Berean? 

Do you find yourself questioning with reference to state- 
ments that are made to you ? Not a wrong attitude if ac- 
companied by open-mindedness, sympathy and a desire to 
know the truth. 

The Bereans believed. Men say, "I can't believe/' One 
cannot believe until he has studied something to believe. 

PIVE STEPS OF THE TEACHING PLAN". 

1. Preparation. It is the object of this step to effect 
in the student a relation to the lesson, to establish a point 
of contact. This is usually done by an illustration. If 
possible, the illustration should contain a point similar 
to that to be emphasized in the lesson. Any new material 
should be introduced under this heading. 

2. Presentation. Here the new material is introduced. 
The reading of the passage will now generally be in order. 
The facts of the lesson are brought out and their connection 
with the facts of previous lessons. Maps and pictures may 
be introduced at this point. 

3. Association or comparison. By comparison, contrast- 
ing, illustrations, by placing the material in new relations, 
the endeavor is here made to get further suggestions. This 
is really "the working up" of the lesson. 

4. Generalization. We have now the introduction or 
statement of general principles arising out. of the material 
secured under the head of Presentation, and worked up 
under Comparison. 

5. Application. Here we have the relation of the gen- 
eralization to the individual life of the sfrdent. 



140 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 38-44. 

Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, pp. 125-137. 

*The Teacher and the Child. Mark, pp. 57-87, 154-165. 

Normal Course. Pease, Second Year, pp. 160-163. 

*Primer on Teaching. Adams, pp. 67-90. 

How to Plan a Lesson. Marianna C. Brown, Ph.D., pp. 26- 
67. (50 cents.) 

How to Conduct the Recitation. Charles McMurry, Ph.D., 
pp. 14-20. (25 cents.) 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Whereas, with few exceptions, there had been a large amount 
of teaching, but very little thinking about it, the nineteenth 
century laid new emphasis on the method of teaching. Some 
of the finest ideas which have ever entered into the human 
mind have failed of their influence, because the men that had 
them did not know how to present them. On the other hand, 
ideas that have greatly influenced men have owed much to 
the form in which they were expressed. The vast influence 
of the Bible writers, for example, does not reside merely in 
what they say, but in the manner and spirit in which they 
say it. The Teacher and the Child. Mark, p. 58. 

In the work of instruction each methodical unity should be 
carried through the following steps: 

1. It should introduce the new lesson by means of a prepara- 
tory discussion. 

2. Present the new lesson. 

3. Compare the new in its parts and with older ideas and 
their combination. 

4. Draw out the general results of this comparison, and ar- 
range them in systematic form. 

5. Convert the knowledge acquired into use. 

These steps may be fairly illustrated in their general out- 
lines by an analogy taken from the work of a farmer. 1. The 
soil is ploughed, harrowed, and made ready for the seed. 2. 
The grain is sowed upon the ready soil and raked in. 3. The 
growing grain is cultivated and the weeds destroyed. 4. The 
harvest is brought in. 5. The grain is used for practical pur- 
poses of food. 

The analogy is so complete that it scarcely calls for a com- 
mentary. The preparation is the preparing of the soil of the 
mind for the seed-corn of instruction. The presentation is 
sowing the seed upon this prepared soil of the mind. The 
third stage is the cultivation of the growing crop, the work- 
ing over of the knowledge just acquired by means of com- 
parison. The fourth step is the harvest time, the drawing 
out of the general truth or law involved in the lesson. Finally, 
the particular uses to which the harvest grain is put, the 
application of acquired knowledge to the practical uses of life. 
How to Conduct the Recitation. McMurry, pp. 16, 54. 



THE TEACHING PLAN 141 

Sometimes when our aim is historical or biographical we 
do well to follow the course of the history pure and simple, 
merely illustrating our lesson by reference to current or 
familiar events. Slightly differing in plan and conception 
from the historical method would be the biological; according 
to which we should follow the order of growth and develop- 
ment, and take nature's story rather than man's as our guide. 
The Teacher and the Child. Mark, p. 80. 

Our preparation of a lesson may be far too rigid; that is, 
if we intend to follow out that lesson on precisely those pre- 
pared lines when we come with it into class. Our preparation 
should give us full command of the subject-matter by bringing 
into shape and clearness our own thoughts upon it; and gen- 
erally speaking, the lesson will follow more or less closely the 
lines we ourselves have sketched out. But every lesson should 
be regarded by the teacher as plastic and, in a# sense, unfin- 
ished, until the interplay of thought between teacher and 
pupils gives it its final form. The Teacher and the Child. Mark, 
p. 74. 

It does not require a prophet to see that the five steps 
in careless hands will degenerate into a dry mechanical rou- 
tine. It might be even worse than text-book lore, for a good 
text-book is always better than a poor teacher. It is not in- 
tended that this plan and these principles shall make a slave 
of the teacher, but that by a hard-earned mastery of their 
details, and by a successful application of them to the con- 
crete materials of study he gradually works his way out into 
the clear daylight of conscious power. In this way the teacher 
becomes a skilled architect, with clear ideas of the strength 
and resistance of materials. How to Conduct the Recitation. 
McMurry, PP. 17-18. 

John Bright is reported as saying, that whenever he made 
a speech he had a care to know in advance how he was to 
begin that speech. He commonly knew what was to be the 
substance of that speech; although circumstances might 
change much of its tenor or its phrasing as it proceeded. But, 
whatever play there might be at any other point, he always 
knew, before he began a speech, how he was going to end it. 
Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 133. 



PART FOUR 



FINAL SURVEY 



TEACHER'S RELATION TO STUDENT 145 



XXII. THE TEACHEK'S RELATION TO THE IN- 
DIVIDUAL STUDENT 

We have considered "The Teacher : His Work, Qualifica- 
tions and Preparation" ; "The Student : His Physical, Men- 
tal and Spiritual Nature"; "The Lesson: The Teacher's 
Approach to the Student." The three remaining lessons 
will, in a sense, be a review of those which have preceded 
under the above captions, for while they will be studies in 
new topics, they will bring in review before the mind many 
of the principles already discussed. That portion of the 
hour usually given to a demonstration of a method of teach- 
ing might profitably be spent for these three sessions in 
reviewing the entire course up to this point in preparation 
for the examination, seven lessons at each session. 

Up to this point we have been examining, to a very large 
extent, the relations of the teacher and the student in the 
classroom. In the lesson now before us we have to examine 
some of those relations which should exist between teacher 
and taught, not only in the classroom, but outside as well — 
"the teacher's other work than teaching/' 

1. We remind ourselves, first of all, of the principle to 
which we have already given some attention in our second 
lesson, that we must not divorce the work of teaching from 
the personality of the teacher. A crude conception of in- 
struction is that it is a perfunctory passing over by the 
teacher to the student of certain facts or items of knowl- 
edge. A truer conception of teaching is that it is a flowing 
of influence through the personality of the teacher to the 
student, a saturation of the knowledge which the teacher 



146 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

would convey with the character of the teacher himself. 
What Phillips Brooks said of preaching is equally true of 
teaching : "Preaching is the communication of truth by man 
to man. It has in it two. essential elements, truth and per- 
sonality. Neither of these can it spare, and still be preach- 
ing. * * The truth must come really through the per- 
son, not merely over his. lips, nor merely into his under- 
standing and out through his pen. It must come through 
his character, his affections, his whole intellectual and 
moral being. * * I think that, granting equal intelli- 
gence and study, here is the great difference which we feel 
between two preachers of the Word. The Gospel has come 
over one of them. The Gospel has come through the other." 

This means, among other things, that the teacher must 
love the student and endeavor to influence him, not only 
through his intellect, but through his affectional nature as 
well. "Aim at the heart in your preaching" was the ad- 
vice of an experienced preacher to a class of graduating 
divinity students. "Not every man- has a head, but every 
man has a heart. If you aim at the head you will miss some 
of your hearers. If you aim at the heart you will hit them 
all. Aim at the heart." 

There is one very apparent reason why this personal 
and intimate relation should be sustained between teacher 
and student. Except for it the instruction of the teacher 
will not carry sufficient weight to offset the evil influences 
which are at work in the student's life daily and hourly, 
and which it is one of the duties of the teacher to overcome. 
The teacher who is with the members of his Bible class 
but one hour in the week, and knows nothing of their life 
beyond that hour, can hardly be expected to stem the tide 
of influences that are at work upon the character of the 
student during the other one hundred and sixty-seven hours 
of the week. 

2. Most of the following influences in the life of the 



TEACHER'S RELATION TO STUDENT 14? 

student may be contributory to the end that the teacher 
has in view in his instruction of them, or they may be 
opposed to that end. Hence the necessity that the teacher 
should be familiar with them in the case of each individual 
student and enter into them so far as possible. 

(1) The teacher should be familiar with the home life 
of the student and know whether the influences there are 
making for or against his advancement in religious instruc- 
tion. Intelligent, and systematic co-operation between par- 
ents and teachers in the instruction of youth is most de- 
sirable. 

(2) Familiarity with the character of the business in 
which the* members of his class may be engaged, its hard- 
ships- or its peculiar temptations, will greatly assist the 
teacher in shaping his instruction and in entering sympa- 
thetically into their business aspirations and drawbacks. 

(3) The same principle holds with reference to younger 
classes, theimembers of which may still be attending school. 
Here, notably a study of the methods of instruction which 
obtain in the schools among boys or young men of the age 
of his students, will be a valuable assistance to the Bible 
class teacher. 

(4) The companionships of a boy or young man may 
make or mar the character. They will go far towards d&- 
stroying all the good effects of a teacher's instruction. On 
the other hand they may be made to subserve the work of 
instruction. The teacher should attempt the difficult task of 
wisely guiding the student in his selection of companions. 

(5) What is true of companions is equally true of rec- 
reations. The more the teacher can enter into these with 
his students the more easily will he be able to guide them. 
This, too, will furnish a key to the question of companion- 
ships. 

(6) In no particular may the teacher be more help- 
ful to the student than in advising him about his reading 



148 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

— suggesting books that are both interesting and instruc- 
tive, and adapted to the particular stage of his growth in 
the mental life. 

(7) But with no point of the student's life should the 
teacher be more familiar than with besetting tempta- 
tions, those which come to him from the nature of his home, 
his occupation, his companions, his recreation, his reading. 
These are to be met by offsetting influences which the 
teacher should study to set in motion lest the instruction 
of the classroom may be entirely neutralized by them. 

3. The teacher may establish social relations with his 
students by visiting them in their homes, or inviting them 
individually or collectively to his own home, or by means of 
outings, or visits to points of interest. It has been said 
that the two principal positions of the two great English 
teachers, Arnold and Bowen, were that, first, the teacher 
must at all hazards secure interest, and, second, that the 
students must be at ease with the teacher. 

4. Absentees should be followed up with scrupulous 
care, especially after their first absences, either by note or 
a personal visit. The habit of absence once formed, like 
other habits, is difficult to break. 

5. The connection between teacher and student may be 
greatly strengthened by the writing of letters. A letter is 
more of an event in the life of young people than among 
those who are older, and will be gladly welcomed. Notably 
will such letters be effective during a period of separation 
between teacher and student, either when the teacher 
may be called away on a trip, or when for any reason the 
student may be absent. Some teachers keep a roll of the 
birthdays of the members of their classes and write to them 
as these come around. A letter at such a time may be very 
effective. 

6. Illness among members of the class especially should 
not be overlooked. A visit at such a time, some delicate 



TEACHER'S RELATION TO STUDENT 149 

attention, will be greatly appreciated, and a tie is apt to be 
thus formed that cannot be easily broken. 

7. But by far the most important work that the teacher 
has to do with the individual student is to win him to a 
complete acceptance of Christ. The Bible class teacher has 
a peculiarly favorable relation to the student to accomplish 
this result. It is his province to lay a broad foundation 
of religious instruction which is the first requisite in form- 
ing* an intelligent personal relation to Christ. Young men 
and boys who will not confide in their parents or most in- 
timate friends concerning their religious feelings and con- 
victions will often respond to the approaches of a tactful 
and sympathetic Bible class teacher on this subject. The 
persistence and earnest solicitude of such a teacher have led 
thousands of young people to dedicate their lives to God. 
Especially should the teacher avail himself of those periods 
in the life of the student at which experience has demon- 
strated that they are most sensitive to leadings of this kind. 
The youth of fifteen or sixteen should be the object of the 
most tender solicitude on the part of his teacher, who 
should with the greatest wisdom and tact watch his oppor- 
tunities for leading him into conscious relation with his 
lord. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

^Teachers and Teaching. Trumbull, pp. 241-377. 

How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 74-78. 

Principles and Ideas for the Sunday-school. Burton and 
Mathews, pp. 98-109. 

Unconscious Tuition. Huntington. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 
I can particularly recall two of my teachers, out of several. 
One made it his whole endeavor to instruct. He declared the 
truth explicitly and with plainness; but he was at no special 
pains to influence his scholars personally. The other was a 
man of less knowledge, but was possessed with zeal for souls. 
His "teaching" was out of the question-book, and was some- 
what perfunctory. But when the "lesson" was over, then that 
teacher would reach forward to his class, and, laying his 
hands tenderly on the knees of one scholar or another, would 



150 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

look into the scholar's eyes, with eyes that were brimming 
with loving tears, and would say, with a tremulous tenderness 
that carried the weight of his whole soul into his words: "My 
dear hoy, I do wish you would love Jesus, and give him your 
whole heart!" All the instruction out of the question-hook 
of one of those classes, and out of the great train of the teacher 
of the other class, has long ago passed from the mind of the 
scholar who tells of this; but the influence of that persistent 
pleader for Christ and for souls is fresh and potent to-day; 
and the pressure of these loving hands on that scholar's knee 
is felt, after half a century, as while those faithful hands still 
rested there. Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 254. 

We are taught, and we teach, by something about us that 
never goes into language at all. I believe that often this is 
the very highest kind of teaching, most charged with moral 
power, most apt to go down among the secret springs of con- 
duct, most effectual for vital issues, for the very reason that 
it is spiritual in its character, noiseless in its pretentions, and 
constant in its operation. Unconscious Tuition. Hunting- 
ton, p. 211. 

Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 

Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 

We yield all blessing to the name 
Of Him that made them current coin; 

For wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
When truth embodied in a tale 

Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought; 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef. 

— Tennyson. 

There is still another department of week-day work which 
the benevolent Sunday-school teacher will find it pleasant to 
perform. It consists of the various friendly services which he 
may render to his pupils in advising and aiding them in the 
selection of employment, the performance of their duties, the 
encounter of ordinary trials, or in more serious difficulties in 
which they may be occasionally involved. It is, in short, to 
act the part of an elder and wiser friend, to whom they may 
appeal for assistance and counsel, and who may help them to 
steer clear of many of the temptations and difficulties of life. 
A wise teacher in this way may aid also in the ordinary educa- 



TEACHER'S RELATION TO STUDENT 151 

tion of his pupils by kindly inquiries about their studies; 
offering suggestions in regard to their reading, and to the 
division and employment of their time, and counsels as to 
their companionships and amusements. How to Teach the 
Bible. Gregory, pp. 77-78. 

At the busiest period of his life, when he was preparing 
lectures which filled his class-room with crowds of students 
and publishing the books which won him a world-wide reputa- 
tion, he regularly spent four hours a day walking with stu- 
dents, besides having one student at dinner with him and 
another at supper, Imago Christi. Stalker, d, 278. 



152 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



XXIII. THE TEACHER'S MISTAKES 

1. In regarding telling as teaching. It cannot be too 
often repeated that "telling is not teaching." Only that 
which the student thinks ont for himself becomes a part of 
his mental and spiritual equipment. It may be easier to 
impart the information to the student than to lead him 
through the comparatively painful process of discovering 
for himself, but the imparting of information is not all of 
teaching. A form of this mistake is to allow a bright stu- 
dent to absorb the time of the class. The telling of the 
answer to every question by one or a few of the more alert 
members of the class is as objectionable as the giving of 
the answer by the teacher. 

2. In regarding knowledge as an end in itself. Charac- 
ter is the end of education. Knowledge is only a means to 
character. The teacher's work, therefore, is to lead the 
student through knowledge to character. In the spiritual 
realm mere knowledge is not productive of spiritual life 
any more than in the intellectual realm mere knowledge is 
productive of power. 

3. In regarding the subject as more important than the 
student. It must be borne in mind that the subject-matter 
even in biblical instruction is not an end in itself. The 
statements of the Bible are the channel through which the 
teacher conveys to the student a knowledge of God and 
spiritual truth and influences him to a life of righteousness. 

4. In thinking that it is sufficient to keep just ahead of 
the student. It is only as the teacher has fathomed all the 



THE TEACHER'S MISTAKES 153 

depths of a subject, explored it in all its length and breadth, 
and studied the relations of its various parts, that he is 
fully prepared to guide the student intelligently even over 
a portion of it. The teacher whose spiritual experience is 
shallow will find himself powerless when he comes to lead 
his student into the larger spiritual life. Henry Moore said 
to Southey, who asked him why he could not write a life of 
John Wesley, "Sir, the well is deep and there is nothing to 
draw with." 

5. In neglecting fresh preparation for each lesson. The 
manna must be gathered each day for the uses of that day. 
The fact that the teacher has a general knowledge of the 
subject to be taught, or has covered the lesson with other 
classes, should not keep him from studying the subject in 
hand in the light of later knowledge and experience. 

6. In assuming that the same mental faculties are not 
used in the study of the Bible as in the study of any other 
subject. A false distinction is sometimes drawn between 
intellectual and devotional Bible study as though all the 
powers of the intellect were not brought into requisition in 
the devotional use of the Bible. Devotional Bible study 
may be more than intellectual Bible study, but cannot 
exclude it. 

7. In ignoring the physical life of the student in his 
mental and spiritual instruction. The body conditions the 
mind and the spirit. Anything that affects the physical 
comfort or welfare of the student may effectually prevent 
him from receiving clear apprehensions of the truth, or 
from wanting to adopt it into his life. From fresh air in 
the classroom to the kind of recreation which he enjoys, 
the teacher should be fully familiar with the physical as- 
pects of his student's life. 

8. In not suiting the lesson material to the age of the 
student. A given lesson might be regarded as so much 
cloth from which a suit is to be made. No tailor thinks of 



154 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 

cutting the cloth -until he has learned the measurements of 
the person for whom the suit is intended. The same lesson 
material may be worked up into an entirely different gen- 
eralization and application, as it is to be taught to a boy of 
twelve, a youth of eighteen, or a man of twenty-four. 

9. In teaching boys principles that cannot be immedi- 
ately applied. Boys are impatient of delay in putting into 
action plans and purposes that are to be wrought out. 
Ideals should be presented that will admit of immediate 
effort at realization. The application of the lesson that 
belongs to the man should not be brought to the attention 
of the boy. 

10. In trying to teach without first having order and 
attention. The teacher should not commence the actual 
study of the lesson with lack of attention any more than he 
would commence the lesson in the absence of the students 
and proceed with it after their dismissal. Much depends 
upon starting right. The step of preparation is all impor- 
tant. An illustration, a startling question, a point of con- 
tact is needed to call in the wandering mental activities of 
the student and rivet his attention on the subject in hand. 

11. In failing to connect new truth with previous acquisi- 
tions. What does the student already know into which this 
new thought can be conveyed or to which it may be attached 
should be the question of the teacher with the preparation 
of each lesson. Especially in the realm of religious instruc- 
tion should the teacher seek to find a point in the experi- 
ence of the student on which to base his teaching. 

12. In insisting upon the language of the book in the 
recitation. Verbal memory is not the most important kind 
of retention. It is far from being an evidence of the appre- 
ciation of the lesson by the student. While the memorizing 
of Scripture has its important place the student should be 
tested by being asked to put the statements of the Bible 
into his own language. 



THE TEACHER'S MISTAKES 155 

13. In neglecting the picture element in instruction. 
The Bible is at many points a book of pictures. He who 
has no imaginative instincts cannot fully understand it. 
Whether it be the material picture made by the artist and 
photographer and presented to the eye, or the mental pic- 
ture presented by the teacher to the imagination, either is 
of great importance in conveying an adequate apprehension 
of the lesson. 

14. In useless stirring of the emotions. This mistake 
may be made in exciting the feelings to too great a tension 
from which there is sure to be an unhealthy reaction, or in 
arousing the emotions without furnishing an immediate 
outlet for their legitimate use. The stirring of the religious 
feelings should naturally lead to an appropriate effort of 
the will in the line of endeavor. 

15. In expecting a mental and spiritual upheaval as a 
necessary attendant of conversion. It should be expected 
of the child who has had normal religious instruction from 
his earliest days of conscious intelligence that he should 
pass naturally and easily during the adolescent period into 
a personal acceptance of Christ, and the responsibilities that 
accompany that relationship. The adult, the trend of whose 
life has not been opposed to the teaching of Christ, may also 
be expected, though with a greater effort of the will than 
in the case of the youth, to come into conscious relations 
with Him without the storm and stress of the conversion, 
for example, of Paul. 

16. In using language unfamiliar to the student. There 
must be a common basis of communication between teacher 
and taught in order to effective teaching. For a teacher to 
think and speak in language far removed from that which 
the student uses is the same kind of absurdity, though less 
in degree, as it would be for an Englishman who can speak 
no French to attempt to teach a Frenchman who can speak 
no English, 



156 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

17. In trying to teach too much in one lesson. Not what 
the student hears but what he takes in and remembers is 
the test of the value of a lesson. Better one or two points 
firmly fixed in the mind than a dozen hastily skimmed over 
without assimilation. Industry, not hurry, should be the 
key-word. Especially does this obtain in religious instruc- 
tion, in which truth must be given time to sink into the life 
and develop into character. 

18. In forcing unnatural applications of the lesson. 
Exotic plants are not the most sturdy. Teachings that do 
not grow naturally out of the lesson, drawing their power 
directly from the truth on which the lesson is based, will not 
be the most fruitful in the student's life. Better draw no 
moral at all than artificially graft teachings, which it is de- 
sired to impress, on lessons to which they do not belong. A 
similar error is sometimes made by teachers in their study 
of the lesson in hastening to gather applications for the 
lesson before making a full study of the lesson material. 

19. In neglecting reviews. This is one of the most com- 
mon mistakes of inexperienced teachers. Under the pres- 
sure of limited time the temptation is to hurry on to the 
end of the lesson in forgetf ulness of the fact that "not what 
a man gains but what he keeps constitutes his wealth." 

20. In putting long and involved questions. The mind 
of the student should not be embarrassed by the necessity 
of deciphering the meaning of the questions. It is sup- 
posed to have enough to do to recall and frame the answer 
to the question, which should be so simple and transparent 
as not to detain the powers of the mind in its solution be- 
fore proceeding to the preparation of the answer. 

21. In not exercising patience in securing replies to 
questions. This mistake may be shown over the slowness of 
the student in furnishing correct answers to the question, 
which may oftentimes be due to the awkwardness of the 
teacher in framing the questions, or, what is more common, 



THE TEACHER'S MISTAKES 157 

lack of patience may be displayed in the readiness of the 
teacher to supply the answer himself when he finds that it 
is not immediately forthcoming from the class. 

22. In nsing illustrations from fields not familiar to the 
student. This mistake is a violation of the very funda- 
mental principle of an illustration which is supposed to be 
something that sheds light on an unfamiliar subject. The 
folly of using something unfamiliar to shed light on some- 
thing that is likewise unfamiliar is most apparent. 

23. In teaching without a definite end in view. The very 
first question the teacher should ask himself after he has 
gathered his lesson material, and before it is organized, 
should be, "What is my object in teaching this lesson? 
What particular point am I to impress upon the class? 
What is the dominant impression I desire to make ?" This 
having been determined he should not lose sight of it until 
the lesson has. been completed. 

24. In dwelling upon minor points in the lesson. This 
mistake comes from the lack of a comprehensive teaching 
plan, from a failure to gather all the lesson material to- 
gether and to weigh the relative value of points secured and 
then to cast the whole in such form as to lead up to a defi- 
nite end. In short, this common error arises from a lack of 
study and method. 

25. In regarding instruction as the sole work of the 
teacher. This mistake is kindred to the one of regarding 
the subject-matter as of greater importance than the stu- 
dent. It must not be overlooked that the teacher has to do 
with a life full of spiritual possibilities and that all agen- 
cies, whether of instruction, personal example, or influences 
of friendship, should come within the sphere of the teacher's 
use. The disciples of Jesus were not simply His disciples, 
they were His friends, and all the influences of friendship, 
as well as of instruction, were brought by Him to bear upon 
their development. 



158 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES, 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

•Mistakes in Teaching. Hughes. 
How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 67-69. 
The Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, pp. 25-27; 45-47; 
60-64; 78-80; 102-104; 116-117; 132-134. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

The teacher should lead or guide his pupils through the 
garden of knowledge, and show them which kinds of fruit are 
beneficial and which injurious; he should also show them the 
best means of obtaining the fruit, but he should not pluck it 
for them, and eat it for them and digest it for them. He should 
teach his scholars how to think; he should not do the thinking 
for them. Mistakes in Teaching. Hughes, p. 93. 

In the same way, writers for children often seem to sup- 
pose that they are placing themselves on the child's plane by 
the use of certain kinds of youthful expressions and by a kind 
of forced intimacy of manner, while the situations, the motives 
and raw material out of which the story or article is made, 
are foreign to the child's perception, thought or feeling. The 
Point of Contact in Teaching. DuBois, p. 86. 

In connection with this clear, intelligible use of words, the 
teacher should take the child's mind back to its own past ex- 
periences, should remind him of facts in his experience, the 
recollection of which may contribute to the production of a 
distinct idea of the place, scene or event. Thus in describing 
an historical event the several features should as far as pos- 
sible be related to analogous events in the child's small world. 
The Teacher's Hand Book of Psychology. Sully, p. 296. 

There is first of all the law of transmutation. These great 
rich feelings that sweep through the soul are not ends in them- 
selves. Unfortunately, many go to the theatres or read the 
thrilling book, merely for the excitement of the emotions pro- 
duced. But every engineer understands that he must not fire 
up the engine unless he has some work to do. The feelings 
are aroused for the purpose of securing the motive power to 
some great action. And if the emotions are quickened and the 
aspirations stirred, to be forgotten again in an hour, then the 
soul is injured. Little by little the finer feelings will harden, 
the soul will put on a veneer, and it will be all but impossible 
to reach these persons. The Feelings: Their Uses and Laws. 
A sermon by Newell Dwight HilHs. 

A Commission from the British Parliament was once set to 
investigate the language of the coal-miners and other laborers 
of England, to ascertain the possibility of diffusing useful in- 
formation among them by means of tracts and books. It was 
found, as reported, that their knowledge of language, in a large 
number of cases examined, was too meagre to allow of such 
means of instruction. Seven Laws of Teaching. Gregory, 
p. 63. 



THE TEACHER'S MISTAKES 159 

Study constantly and carefully the pupil's language to learn 
what words he uses and the meanings he gives them. Secure 
from him as full a statement as possible of his knowledge of 
the subject, to learn both his ideas and his mode of expressing 
them, and to help him to correct his language. Express your 
thoughts as far as possible in the pupil's words, carefully cor- 
recting any defect in the meaning he gives them. Use the 
simplest and fewest words that will express the idea. Un- 
necessary words add to the child's work and increase the 
danger of misunderstanding. Use short sentences, and of the 
simplest construction. Long sentences tire the attention, 
while short ones both stimulate and rest the mind. The Seven 
Laws of Teaching. Gregory, p. 59. 

A more serious fault is that of those who, failing to find 
anything in the lesson, try to graft something upon it, and 
make it a mere cart to carry their own fancies on. The Seven 
Laws of Teaching. Gregory, p. 26-27. 

The first violation of the law is the total neglect of reviews. 
This is the folly of the utterly poor and idle teacher. Second 
comes the wholly inadequate reviews. This is the fault of the 
hurried and impatient teacher, who is more anxious to get 
through the book than to get the book through the mind of 
his pupils. The third mistake is that of delaying all reviews 
till the end of the quarter when, the lessons being wholly for- 
gotten, the review amounts to a poor and hurried relearning, 
with little interest and less profit. The fourth blunder is that 
of degrading the review into a lifeless repetition of the same 
questions and answers as those used at first. This has the 
form of a review without its power. The Seven Laws of 
Teaching, Gregory, p. 133. 



160 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



XXIV. JESUS AS A TEACHEE 

1. Preaching and teaching. While everyone feels that 
there is a difference between preaching and teaching, it is a 
difference that is not easily analyzed or described. The fol- 
lowing distinctions may therefore be subject to modifica- 
tions and will certainly not be acceptable to all : 

(1) The preacher as a rule presents great principles or 
truths without necessarily disclosing the processes by which 
these results have been reached. The teacher deals with 
certain facts, and the processes by which these facts are 
developed into generalization are carried on in the class- 
room. 

(2) The method of the preacher is one of inspiration, the 
method of the teacher is one of instruction, a process of 
building "line upon line, precept upon precept." 

(3) The preacher's method is one of sacred oratory in 
the literal sense of that word. The teacher's method is 
usually conversational. 

(4) The preacher speaks to a silent audience. Teaching 
as a rule consists of the interchange of question and answer, 
the play of discussion between teacher and taught. 

(5) The preacher speaks to a large number. The larger 
the audience the more inspired are his utterances likely to 
be. The teacher does his best work with a small number. 

2. Jesus was pre-eminently a teacher. As a rule, Jesus 
carried his auditors with Him through the processes by 
which He arrived at the principles He presented; He did 
not indulge in impassioned utterances intended to sweep 
men into the Kingdom of Heaven by the force of eloquence; 



JESUS AS A TEACHER 161 

one can hardly imagine that He was other than conversa- 
tional in His method of teaching; we find Him calling ont 
the opinions and suggestions of His auditors and building 
the discussion upon them; He did not seem to covet the 
opportunity to speak to multitudes, but dealt with the few 
or even with a single individual. His recorded utterances 
that might be designated as sermons or discourses are few 
in number, while there were scores of personal interviews 
or talks with small groups. Of course, Jesus did preach as 
well as teach. It is said of Him that immediately after 
His temptation He began to preach. He applied to Him- 
self the words of Isaiah, "He anointed Me to preach the 
good tidings to the poor." But, as sometimes happens in 
the case of a preacher, the teaching elements of His preach- 
ing were so dominant that people thought of Him as a 
teacher, and it is sometimes difficult to say at what point 
He was preaching and at what point He was teaching. It 
is recorded of Him that He went about teaching and preach- 
ing, but His work as a teacher was evidently the dominant 
impression left upon the minds of those about Him. He 
was familiarly known as Eabbi, Master, the title given by 
the. Jews to their teachers. Several times it is said of Him 
that He taught in the synagogue, and at least once that He 
taught the multitudes. One would have little hesitation in 
saying that His greatest work was in the training of the 
twelve who were called His disciples and might be regarded 
as His class of students. 

3. Elements of power in Jesus as a teacher. We turn 
our attention to those characteristics of Jesus which mark 
Him especially as a teacher — the characteristics He pos- 
sessed aside from the spiritual endowments He might have 
had, even if He had not been pre-eminently a teacher. It 
would be interesting for the student to go through the In- 
terwoven Gospels, making note of each reference to Jesus 
as a teacher, and from these statements constructing his 



162 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

own category of the elements which contributed to the 
effectiveness of Jesus as a teacher. Those who cannot take 
the time to do this original work should study the following 
passages (the first verse only of the passage in any case 
being indicated) : 

John 1:14; John 14:16. 

Matt. 7:29; Mark 1:22. 

John 1 :35 ; Luke 9 :55 ; John 20 :27. 

Matt. 4 :1 ; Luke 4:17; Luke 24 :27. 

John 1 :48 ; John 2 :24 ; Luke 9 :47. 

Luke 4:17; Luke 10:26. 

John 3:1; John 4:1. 

Matt. 13 :1 ; Matt. 25 :1 ; Luke 15 :1. 

Matt. 21 :19 ; Matt 22 :19 ; John 13 :14. 

Matt. 19:21; Matt. 12:50. 

Matt. 5:46; Matt. 7:3,16. 

Mark 8 :36 ; Luke 7 :40 ; Luke 10 :25, 30. 

Matt. 21:24; Matt. 22:45; Luke 6:9. 

Luke 4 :20 ; John 3 :3 ; John 4 :10. 

Matt. 12 :1 ; Matt. 26 :45 ; Mark 6 :31. 

Luke 11:1; John 15:15. 

Luke 4:28; John 4:39. 

(1) His personality. It was said of Him that He was 
full of "grace and truth." So thoroughly did He embody 
His own teaching in His life, so much of an example was 
He of that which He presented in His teaching, that He 
could say of Himself, "I am the truth." 

(2) His authority. The people immediately detected 
the strong note in His teaching and distinguished it from 
the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees. Whether it was 
less wavering, less mechanical, more consistent, it is very 
evident that He spoke with full confidence of the truth of 
that which He was presenting. 

(3) His sympathy. Whether in the call to His disciples, 
in tender response to their hesitation, "Come and see," or in 



JESUS AS A TEACHER 163 

His patience with slow learners, as in His rebuke to those 
who would bring fire upon the Samaritans because they 
would not receive Him, or in His forbearance with the 
doubting Thomas, the sympathy of Jesus towards those 
whom He would teach was most evident. 

(4) His simplicity. "Without a parable, He spake no + 
unto them," and yet His parables in their superficial mean- 
ing at least were extremely simple as were all His illustra- 
tions. The Beatitudes, the teaching about the bread of life, 
the analogy of the vine and the branches, are all clear 
and transparent and marked by the greatest simplicity. 

(5) His knowledge of Scriptures. So familiar was He 
with the law and the prophets that He could bring immedi- 
ately to bear upon the tempter appropriate verses of* Scrip- 
ture, could turn without hesitation to the needed place in 
His reading in the synagogue, or, more remarkable still, 
could charm the two disciples as they walked to Emmaus by 
beginning from Moses and from all the prophets and in- 
terpreting to them all the Scriptures, the things concerning 
Himself." 

(6) His knowledge of men. It is said of Him that He 
"knew all men." He could detect the "reasoning of the 
heart" of the disciples when they disputed among them- 
selves who should be the greatest. He excited the surprise 
of Nathanael by being able to detect the drift of his 
thoughts while he sat under the fig tree. 

(7) He proceeded from the known to the unknown. To 
Mcodemus He unfolded the Sonship of God in the terms 
of the new birth and compared the moving of the Spirit of 
God with the coming and going of the wind. With the 
Samaritan woman He proceeded from the water of the well 
to the living water of which if she should drink she would 
not thirst again. 

(8) His adaptation. Whether with Nicodemus, the 
teacher of the Jews, or with the humble Samaritan woman, 



164 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

He was equally natural and at ease in the manner of His 
approach on the great subjects to be discussed and adapted 
His teaching with equal facility to both. 

(9) His illustrations. Eegarding His parables as illus- 
trations, as indeed they were in essence, the reader finds a 
wealth in these gems scattered in bountiful profusion 
throughout the teachings of Jesus. Seven of them are gath- 
ered in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew — the parables of 
the sower, the good seed and tares, the mustard seed, the 
leaven, the treasure in the field, the goodly pearls, the net; 
three of them in the fifteenth chapter of »Luke — the parables 
of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the* lost son; two of 
them in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew — the parables 
of the ten virgins and talents. His illustrations are always 
taken from a sphere familiar to His hearers. Nature is 
the most fruitful source of them; the lily, the harvest 
field, the tree, the vineyard — all go to illustrate and enforce 
His thought. Object illustrations were often used by Him. 
The washing of the disciples' feet, the blasting of the fig 
tree, the tribute money, the child in the midst — all help 
to make clear great spiritual truths. 

(10) He excited His hearers to self -activity. Jesus was 
not content till the mental processes of those with whom He 
was dealing had moved them to action. To the young man 
from whom He had elicited a narration of the moral law, 
He said, "Go sell." To those who told Him His mother 
and brethren were without He addressed the question, "Who 
is my mother and who are my brethren?" and then added, 
"Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, he is my brother 
and sister and mother." 

(11) His questions. The question was a favorite method 
with Jesus as with many great teachers in the conveying 
of truth. "If ye love them that love you, what reward have 
ye ?" "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's 
eye but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye ?" 



JESUS AS A TEACHER 165 

"Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ?" 
"What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and 
forfeit his life?" "What is written in the law?" He said 
to the lawyer who asked what he should do to inherit eternal 
life, and, to permit the lawyer to make his own interpreta- 
tion as to who was his neighbor, recited the story of the 
good Samaritan. When He would stir the sensibilities and 
arouse the conscience of Simon, His host, He told the story 
of the lender and the two debtors, and asked the searching 
question, "Which of them loved him the most ?" Sometimes 
questions were asked, not so much to convey a truth, as to 
confound His enemies. Those who were trying to implicate 
Him in His teaching found themselves between the two 
horns of a dilemma when He pointedly asked, "The baptism 
of John, whence was it, from Heaven or from men?" 
Equally confounded were they by His question, "Is it lawful 
on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? To save life 
or to destroy it?" and by that other one, "If David then 
called him Lord, how is he his son ?" 

(12) He excited the interest and attention of His audi- 
tors. The curiosity of Nathanael knew no bounds when 
Jesus spoke of his experiences under the fig tree. In speak- 
ing to the Nazarenes, it is said of Him, "He closed the 
book and gave it back and sat down, and the eyes of all 
in the synagogue were fastened upon him." He excited 
the interest of Mcodemus by the saying, "Except a man 
be born anew he cannot see the Kingdom of God," and that 
of the Samaritan woman by His saying, "If thou knewest 
who it is that saith unto thee 'give me to drink' thou 
wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee 
living water." 

(13) His care for the physical condition of His disciples. 
He allowed them to pluck the corn in the corn fields through 
which they were passing on the Sabbath day and de- 
fended them in the act. He called them apart into a desert 



166 THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 

place after their return from a tour of labor, saying, "Come 
apart and rest awhile/' Tb the disciples who were so over- 
come that they could not watch with Him during His agony, 
He said kindly and pathetically, "Sleep on now and take 
your rest/' 

(14) His relation to His disciples aside from His in- 
struction. They are spoken of as "those about Him." After 
He had finished His formal instruction they came to Him 
and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." He called them His 
friends. 

(15) He aroused the conscience. Whether in the case 
of the Samaritan woman, whom He brought to a knowledge 
of her sins and to an acceptance of Him, or of the Naza- 
renes, whom He also convinced of their unbelief, and drove 
to desperation, He succeeded in stirring convictions and 
arousing the conscience. 

4. Discouragements of Jesus as a teacher: 

Matt. 26:56; Luke 9:45; John 12:16. 

Mark 3 :21 ; John 7 :5 ; 20 :25. 

John 6:26; 6:66. 

Mark 14 :1 ; Luke 6 :7 ; John 8 :3. 

Matt 26 :31, 36 ; Luke 6 :11, 12. 

Mark 16 :7 ; Luke 9 :54 ; John 20 :27. 

(1) Many of those whom He taught did not understand 
Him. This was not only true of those who were strangers 
to Him, but it was especially true of His own race and of 
His own disciples. It is said especially of the reference 
which Jesus made in advance to His crucifixion that "they 
understood not this saying and it was hid from them." 
More than once it is said that they understood not certain 
things that were said to them at the time, and it was only 
after Jesus had been crucified and risen from the dead that 
they remembered what He had said. 

(2) He met frequently with doubters. His brethren did 
not believe in Him. His friends thought He was beside 



JESUS AS A TEACHER 167 

Himself. His disciple Thomas would not believe unless he 
were permitted to put his finger into the print of the nails 
and his hand into the side of the wounded Christ. 

(3) Many of His followers sought material rather than 
spiritual benefits. They came to Him because they had , 
eaten of the loaves and fishes and had been filled. When t 
He spoke of His approaching trial many went back. 

(4) He encountered the indifference and opposition of 
men. Which was harder for Jesus to bear it is difficult to 
say — the apathy of those who simply did not embrace His 
instruction or the antipathy of the Scribes and Pharisees 
who were constantly seeking to entrap Him and finally to 
put Him to death. 

(5) The course of Jesus in these discouragements is very 
suggestive. 

(a) He resorted to prayer. When the Scribes and Phari- 
sees, "filled with madness, communed one with another 
what they might do with Jesus," "He went out into the 
mountain to pray." After He had prophesied that they 
would all be offended in Him during the night of His pas- 
sion, He took them to Gethsemane and went aside to pray. 

(6) His patience in the bearing of these discouragements 
and His perseverance in following up those whom He 
sought to influence were most marked. When He had risen 
from the dead, He said to Thomas, "Beach hither thy finger 
and see My hands, and reach thither thy hand and put 
it into My side." He had evidently planned that the news 
of His resurrection should be carried by the two Marys 
to His disciples and Peter. 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 

Imago Christi. Stalker, pp. 261-280. ($1.25.) 
Jesus as a Teacher. B. A. Hinsdale. ($1.25.) 
Teacher Training with the Master Teacher, C. S. Beardslee. 
(50 cents.) 
How to Teach the Bible. Gregory, pp. 78-81. 
*The Blackboard in Sunday-school. H. T. Bailey, pp. 16-23. 



168 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 



ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

The difference between teaching and preaching is partly 
that preaching may appeal to the emotions, while teaching 
appeals to the understanding only; but chiefly that the 
preacher tries to bring about an immediate result, to lead to 
conviction, resolution, and amendment before the end of the 
hour, while the teacher uses a more patient process, takes a 
longer time and a longer look, endeavors to prepare the 
learner to listen to the sermon, and to assist the will gradually 
by informing the mind. Principles of Religious Education. 
Dean George Hodges, p. 81. 

The audiences to whom Jesus preached numbered thousands, 
the men to whom he acted as teacher numbered only twelve. 
Yet perhaps in its results His work in the latter capacity was 
quite equal in value to His whole work as a preacher. Imago 
Christi. Stalker, p. 163. 

When poor, discouraged, imprisoned John sent two of his 
disciples to inquire, "Art thou he that should come?" Luke 
says that in that same hour Jesus, instead of saying the simple 
word Yes, cured many of their infirmities, and plagues and of 
evil spirits, and unto many that were blind He gave sight 
Then answering, He said unto them, "Go your way and tell 
John what things ye have seen and heard." "Who is the great- 
est in the kingdom of heaven?" asked the disciples. And 
Jesus called a little child unto him and set him in the midst 
of them. "What thinkest thou," asked the Herodians, "is it 
lawful to give tribute to Caesar?" "Show me the tribute 
money," said Jesus. "Whose image and superscription ia 
this?" When He would teach the greatness of a service He took 
a towel and girded himself and afterward said, "If I, your 
Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to serve 
one another." When He would teach the deepest mysteries of 
our faith, He took bread and gave thanks and brake it and 
gave it unto them, saying, "This is my body broken for you." 
Likewise also the cup, saying, "This cup is the new testament 
in my blood which is shed for you." When the object itself 
could not be had He used mental pictures. Would He teach the 
attitude of God and Father toward a lost world? He did it by 
that vivid panorama of the prodigal son. Was it the solicitude 
of the Spirit? That was suggested by the picture of a woman 
searching the house with a candle. Did he wish them to ap- 
preciate the self-sacrificing love of the Son of God? They were 
to recall the good shepherd leaving the ninety and nine and 
going through darkness and danger to find the one which was 
lost. The Blackboard in Sunday-school. Bailey, pp. 19-20. 

That was the way in which our Lord and His disciples fre- 
quently impressed a truth to which they attached peculiar 
importance; sometimes with a slight change in the phrase- 
ology and meaning and again in the very words first employed. 
"Jesus looked round about, and saith unto His disciples, How 



JESUS AS A TEACHER 169 

hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of 
God! And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus 
answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard it 
is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of 
God! It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, 
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
Again, "Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, lovest 
thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; 
thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto them, Feed my 
lambs. He saith unto him the second time, Simon, son of 
John, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou 
knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Tend my sheep. 
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of John, lovest 
thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the 
third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou 
knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus said 
unto him, Feed my sheep." Can anyone doubt that these 
truths were more firmly fastened in the minds of their hearers 
by their threefold repetition in immediate review? Nor was 
that an uncommon method with our Lord, in His teaching. 
Teaching arid Teachers. Trumbull, pp, 215-216. 



170 THE TEACHING OP BIBLE CLASSES 



XXV. EXAMINATION 

(The examination should be a written one, and the fol- 
lowing are the kind of questions that might be presented. 
The students will answer questions 1, 2, 11, 20, and select 
six other questions, but no more. If more than ten ques- 
tions are answered only the answers to the first ten should 
be considered. Each answer should be marked on the basis 
of ten for a perfect answer. Of the 100 possible credits 
to be secured in this way for perfect answers to the ten 
questions, 75 should be considered necessary to pass the 
examination. ) 

1. Give a definition of teaching which shall embody 
three of its essential elements. 

2. Name three qualifications for teaching that bear on 
the relation of the teacher to the student. 

3. Why should the Bible class teacher have a knowledge 
of the elementary principles of instruction possessed by 
the teacher of any other subject? 

4. Designate three illustrations of common effects of 
body on mind and spirit, and three illustrations of common 
effects of mind and spirit on body, and indicate at least 
one application of these effects to the teaching of the 
Bible. 

5. Designate at least three characteristics of early adoles- 
cence and indicate how these should modify biblical in- 
struction at this age. 

6. Indicate three methods growing out of the treatment 
of the subject of securing and retaining attention. 

7. What is helpful to memory in teaching, and what 
bearing has this on the memorizing of Scripture? 



EXAMINATION 171 

8. What is the relation of the imagination to memory? 
Of what use is the imagination in Bible study? 

9. What is the relation of the feelings to character and 
conduct ? 

10. What gain does habit bring. to living? 

11. What is the chief faculty of the spiritual nature 
and with what mental capacity would you compare it? 

12. To what in the student should the teacher adapt 
himself in his teaching? What is Apperception? 

13. Describe the inductive and deductive methods of 
Bible study. 

14. Name three objects of the review. 

15. Designate five characteristics of a good question. 

16. What is the chief characteristic of a good illus- 
tration ? 

17. Give the principal steps in a lesson study, and a 
teaching plan. 

18. What responsibility has the teacher for the student 
outside of the classroom? 

19. What in your opinion is the chief difficulty an inex- 
perienced teacher has to contend with in teaching? 

20. Name at least three characteristics of Jesus as a 
teacher, aside from the spiritual endowments which He 
might have had, even if He had not been pre-eminently a 
teacher. 

ILLUSTRATIVE QUOTATIONS. 

Bible knowledge is to be secured through the same mental 
processes as any other knowledge, and the testing of the 
knowledge gained by a scholar in the study of the Bible must 
be by the same method as his testing in any other department 
of knowledge. Teaching and Teachers. Trumbull, p. 199. 

When classes reach an average of ninety per cent, and up- 
wards in a written examination, the fact may be usually ac- 
cepted as evidence that both tests and instruction have been 
grooved, or that much time has been wasted in drilling the 
more backward pupils to the sacrifice of time and opportunity 
on the part of other pupils. Elements of Pedagogy. White, 
p. 203. 



APPENDIX 



THE ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF A CLASS 
IN THE TEACHING OF BIBLE CLASSES 



APPENDIX 175 



APPENDIX 



The Organization and Conduct of a Class in the Teaching 
of Bible Classes. 

DEMONSTRATION OP A METHOD OF TEACHING. 

A demonstration of a method of teaching by members of the 
class in turn should be a feature of each lesson period. That 
is, a member of the class appointed one or two weeks in ad- 
vance should conduct the class over a Bible lesson by the same 
method which he follows in conducting the class of which he 
may be the teacher. 

The following division of an hour is suggested: 

8:00 to 8:05 P. M.— Opening. 

8:05 to 8:10 P. M.— Review. 

8:10 to 8:30 P.M.— A study of principles. 

8:30 to 8:35 P.M. — Assignment of next lesson and of work 

thereon. 
8:35 to 8:50 P.M. — A study of methods: The teaching of a 

lesson. 
8:50 to 9:00 P. M.— Comments on method. 

Of course a member of the class cannot in ten or fifteen 
minutes cover an entire lesson which as a teacher of his own 
class he occupies a half hour or an hour in covering. He can, 
however, demonstrate his method of teaching in a few min- 
utes, and disclose the characteristics and faults of his ordinary 
teaching. He should be allowed to proceed, however, as though 
he had the usual lesson period, arrested a minute or two before 
the expiration of the time and given an opportunity to present 
the closing suggestions of the lesson. It would be helpful if 
the member appointed to render this service would place on 
the blackboard in advance of the session a brief outline of the 
teaching plan of the entire lesson so that the teaching of a 
portion of the lesson may be judged in relation to the whole. 
Arrangements for the class occasionally to visit or be visited 
by expert teachers would be desirable. The members of the 
class should be encouraged to cultivate the habit of studying 
the methods of the most successful teachers, visiting various 
Bible classes and reporting on the methods used. Successful 



176 APPENDIX 

teachers should be interviewed as to their methods of prep- 
aration and instruction. Members of the class might prof- 
itably visit the public schools, or college classrooms, and report 
on the methods of instruction there observed, and on the 
difference in methods followed in the teaching during earlier 
and later adolescence. 

COMMENTS ON METHODS OF TEACHING. 

The comments of the members of the class on the method 
of teaching should be specific and searching. They should 
not be allowed to degenerate into complimentary platitudes. 
On the other hand, they should be sympathetic. It should be 
borne in mind that criticism is a judgment on the merits as 
well as on the demerits of a production. Therefore, an effort 
should be made to emphasize the good points of the teaching 
method as well as the defects. The comments on method 
should run to some extent along the line of the principles of 
teaching which have been considered. Among the comments 
that were offered in the course of a season in a class of this 
kind were the following: 

The teacher talked too much himself. 

Made practical application of the^ subject to the daily life of 
the student 

Made New Testament application of an Old Testament 
lesson. 

Manner attractive to the class from the outset. 

Assumed position of leadership. 

No wasting of time. 

Showed preparation. 

Selected salient points of lesson for emphasis. 

Too much sameness in teaching — not enough variety. 

Should have illustrated on a blackboard. 

Did not ask questions. 

Teaching too abstract. 

No practical point to instruction. 

Outline carefully prepared. 

Began with a good story. 

Was interested himself. 

Read scriptural references himself. 

Interpreted the lesson in terms of daily life. 

Alert manner. 

Good illustration of "Thy word is a lamp." 

Although a lesson for boys, used no drawing. 

Took grasshoppers as a point of contact. 

Began with references to the present-day politician. 

Commenced the lesson with a diagram. 

The lack of the picture element in a lesson from the 32d 
Psalm; no attempt to illuminate such words as "Transgres- 
sion," "Sin," "Waxing old of bones," "Moisture." 

Presented effective incident and appeal at the close. 

Appealed to love of heroism. 

Made practical application of the lesson. 



APPENDIX 177 

Questioned the students in rotation in order of seating. 

Made an earnest appeal to the members of the class. 

Made the members of the class think. 

Presented the truth to the class through his own personality. 

Used language beyond the comprehension of class. 

Evidently had a plan for the lesson. 

Presented clear outline of the whole lesson. 

Proceeded systematically. 

Did not review before commencing the lesson in hand. 

Had good way of asking questions. 

Had- prepared his questions. 

Did not give due weight to all answers. 

Did not address questions to special men. 

Answered a question not answered immediately by class. 

Used elliptical questions. 

Made a good word picture of the scene. 

Good contrasts. 

Should have had a map. 

Was drawn into controversy. 

Made an appeal to conscience. 

THE COURSE OF BIBLE STUDY. 
Two plans may be observed in the selection of courses of 
Bible lessons to be used in such a class: 

(1) If the class is composed of leaders of other groups, 
and membership in the class is conditioned on the leadership 
of such a group, a single course of Bible study might well be 
followed, and the common lesson of the following week taught 
at each session. This course might be one of the elementary 
courses of a graded plan, and the selection of a course of 
study from among them would result in the multiplying of 
the number of students entering upon the elementary stages 
of this work and so prepared to be advanced from grade to 
grade. 

(2) If the members of the class are already teachers of 
other classes the selection of Bible lessons to be taught in the 
class might be postponed till the class is brought together 
and organized, and a course then selected which would be 
profitable to the largest number, or a selection of lessons 
might be made from the various courses represented in the 
class. 

THE TEACHER. 

One need not necessarily be an expert teacher in order to 
conduct such a course of study as this in the principles of 
teaching. The elementary principles of teaching are now so 
well known and are to such an extent common property as to 
justify others than professional teachers in attempting the 
leadership of such a class. 

If more expert leadership is required, a school principal 
or other teacher, or a peculiarly qualified minister or other 
professional man, might be available as a teacher of the class. 



178 APPENDIX 

SELECTION OF MATERIAL. 

The lessons on the principles of teaching outlined in this 
book will doubtless be found to contain too much to be covered 
in the time allotted to them in the lesson period, and, perhaps, 
even for home study by members of the class. A selection of 
portions especially suited to the needs and capacity of the 
student should be made by the teacher and assigned in ad- 
vance. A few points firmly fixed in the mind will be more 
profitable than a hurried consideration of a large number. 

Henry Clay Trumbull says: "The question of getting 
through with a Bible lesson in a given time has really little 
or nothing to do with the length of the lesson itself. One 
verse might occupy a teacher for a life-time. And a complete 
lesson could be taught about the whole Bible in ten minutes. 
A teacher has no more right to expect to serve out to his class 
all that he finds in a lesson, than a guest at a first-class hotel 
has to eat every dish that he finds noted on the dinner bill of 
fare, from soup to confectionery." In the same strain the Su- 
perintendent of Schools of New York City says: "The teacher 
should have the ability to pick out essentials and disregard 
the other things. This is the only solution of the problem of 
the so-called overcrowded course of study. The fault lies with 
the teacher." 

The teachers of classes composed of older boys who are lead- 
ing classes of younger boys should be especially careful in 
their selection of material. The more abstruse points of the 
lesson should be omitted. For example, in the study of Les- 
son 6 on Interest and Attention, the nature of attention might 
be omitted and emphasis laid on methods of securing atten- 
tion. Whole lessons might be advantageously omitted in such 
classes, notably some of those in Part II, bearing on the intel- 
lectual powers. It will be safe to omit these subjects if it is 
found that they have not been covered in any one of their 
aspects by the same boys in their school work. The time 
gained by these omissions could profitably be spent in fre- 
quent reviews. 

CONDUCT OF THE LESSONS IN THE PRINCIPLES OF 
TEACHING. 

An effort should be made to have members of the class put 
in concrete forms the abstract principles in these lessons. For 
example, illustrations of the principle of proceeding from the 
known to the unknown, the point of contact, the connection of 
the body and the mind. Especially should students be expected 
to suggest concrete examples and illustrations of principles 
from the Scriptures. 

The student should be expected to make notes. The black- 
board should be in constant requisition. The teacher might 
write on the blackboard each point that is developed, giving 
the precise form of the statement that the student is expected 
to transcribe in his notes. 

General reviews should be conducted frequently. Such sec- 



APPENDIX 179 

tions as the first three lessons constituting Part I of the 
course, or Lessons 6, 7, and 8, covering the intellectual facul- 
ties, should he reviewed together. The review midway in the 
course will prepare for the final review or examination, and 
should therefore be more formal and might be a written one. 
The demonstration of methods of teaching might be suspended 
after Lesson 19. The work outlined for Lessons 20 and 21 
will easily occupy the entire hour, and a portion of the time 
of Lessons 22, 23, and 24 might be spent in reviewing the 
entire course in blocks of seven lessons each, leading up to 
the examination at the close. 

The teacher of such a class will naturally conduct it as far 
as possible by the question and conversational method. Each 
teacher will find his own questions the most effective, but in 
order to suggest the type of questions that will bring out the 
knowledge of the student concerning these subjects, questions 
for the first three lessons are here appended: 

Lesson 1. 

What are the three objects of teaching? 

What are the three objects of teaching Bible classes? 

Wherein lies the importance of knowledge? 

Is the teaching process from within or without? 

Give an original definition of teaching, or select one that 
comes nearest to your idea of the process. 

What relation does the teacher bear to the activities of the 
student? 

Designate some kinds of knowledge that the boy secures with- 
out a teacher. 

What advantages come to the student from the securing of 
knowledge through self-activity? 

What kind of activities is the teaching of the Bible intended 
to stimulate? 

What is education? 

What relation does teaching bear to education? 

What is the principal object of Bible teaching? 

Lesson 2. 

What twofold relation does the teacher bear? 

What should characterize the teacher's knowledge of the 

Bible? 
How may the subject under instruction come between the 

teacher and the student? 
What kind of knowledge of the student should the teacher 

have? 
Why is it necessary for the teacher to be an example to the 

student? 
What is necessary in order that the teacher may become a 

friend of the student? 
What teaching qualifications should the*teacher possess? 



180 APPENDIX 

Lesson 3. 

What two kinds of preparation does the teacher need for his 

work? 
What twofold preparation in subject-matter should the teacher 

make? 
What may enter into the general preparation of a teacher? 
What kind of preparation in Bible study should the teacher 

have? 
Why should the teacher make special preparation for each 

lesson, although familiar with the ground to be covered? 
Why is method important? 
What are natural teachers? 
What is religious pedagogy? 

Why apply the principles of pedagogy to biblical instruction? 
What misuse of the science of teaching may the teacher make? 
What is meant by the science and art of teaching? 

REFERENCES FOR READING. 
The following books are those to which most frequent refer- 
ence is made in these lessons. All of them might well be 
placed at the outset in a library where they would be ac- 
cessible to members of the class. The sixteen volumes may 
be secured at an expense of less than $15, list prices. Other 
books than these may be distinguished in the lists following 
the lessons by the mention of prices in the first list in which 
they occur. The most valuable books which at the same time 
are the most available and popular reference books for the 
particular lesson in connection with which they are suggested 
are indicated by a star. 

The Seven Laws of Teaching. John M. Gregory. (50 cents.) 

How to Teach the Bible. John M. Gregory. (15 cents.) 

Teaching and Teachers. Henry Clay Trumbull. ($1.25.) 

Talks to Teachers. William James. ($1.50.) 

The Teacher's Hand Book of Psychology. James Sully. ($2.00.) 

Psychology in Education. Ruric M. Roark. ($1.00.) 

Elements of Pedagogy. Emerson E. White. ($1.00.) 

Principles of Religious Education. ($1.25.) 

Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School. E. D. Burton and 

Shailer Mathews. ($1.00.) 
Primer on Teaching. John Adams. (20 cents.) 
The Teacher and the Child. H. Thistelton Mark. ($1.00.) 
The Spiritual Life. George Albert Coe. ($1.00.) 
Education in Religion and Morals. George Albert Coe, ($1.35.) 
The Point of Contact in Teaching. Patterson DuBois. (75 

cents.) 
Revised Normal Lessons. Jesse Lyman Hurlbut. (25 cents.) 
Normal Course. (2 vols.) George W. Pease. (25 cents each.) 



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